THERE was no rearguard at the Oval yesterday. No happy Wanderers; no thin red line; no glory. Instead, as Big Ben, on the skyline away beyond the Kennington rooftops, struck 5 o'clock, Aamir Sohail carved Robert Croft for successive boundaries to give Pakistan overwhelming victory in the final Test of the summer by nine wickets.

A blaze of strokeplay had brought a flamboyant climax to what had been a day of carnage and ignominy for England, who began the day on 74 for no wicket, nurturing hopes if not of winning - that disappeared days ago - then of limiting the damage.

Instead, after Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart had extended their opening stand to 96, England lost all 10 of their wickets in just 49 overs for the further addition of 146 runs, only Stewart(54), Nasser Hussain (51) and Atherton (43) offering much beyond token resistance.

Six of the wickets went in 30 unbroken overs from the Vauxhall End to the magical wristspin of Mushtaq 8 for 156 in the match - while the Pakistan captain Wasim Akram blasted out three of the last four, the final one of which took him to 300 in Tests.

Such irresistible bowling from the most complete attack on the planet, left Pakistan 29 overs in which to score the 48 required. They needed just 39 balls, a consolation wicket, that of Saeed Anwar, going to Alan Mullally. As the winning boundary seared across the outfield, the crowd small swarmed across the ground and gathered in front of the pavilion to chant "Pakistan Zindabad, Long Live Pakistan". There was true justification for the celebrations England have played 39 three-match series at home and never before lost two matches. It means that England have now won just one of the last 19 matches between the two countries, to Pakistans seven. England were beaten by a very good side.

The ceremonies after the game were predictable. Mushtaq was indisputably declared both man of the match and Pakistan's man of the series, while Alec Stewart whose career has been restored this past month, was England's man of the series.

It was on Stewart and Atherton that much rested yesterday. They had withstood a ferocious assault on Monday evening, and for three quarters of an hour, did so again yesterday, until Stewart, having passed his half century, prodded a bat pad catch from Mushtaq to short leg to start the destruction. By lunchtime, Atherton too had gone pushing another catch, this time from pad and bat, to silly mid off after a second wicket stand of 40 with Hussain.

The key session however was that in the afternoon, when England subsided from 158 for two to 227 for seven as the ball spat and bit for Mushtaq and at the other end, significantly, the reverse swing began to snake the ball about for the pace men.

Once again, for almost two hours, Hussain played with composure, hitting eight fours including that straight driven back past Mohammad Akram which took him to his half century. He had seen Thorpe edge Mushtaq to slip and at least can be unhappy with his own dismissal, BC Cooray myopically deciding that the leg-break to which he padded up, bowled from round the wicket, would have hit rather than missed off stump.

Thereafter, it was processional as Pakistan, having made the breach, worked through the order.