CRICKET: England's lack of enterprise in a match they largely dominated ensured that the first Test petered out gently into a draw.
Leaving themselves 80 overs in which to dismiss Pakistan - the 380-run target was strictly notional - Matthew Hoggard took the wicket of Salman Butt with the first ball of the innings and added that of Imran Farhat before lunch. The second session saw Monty Panesar collect two more wickets. That, though, was it.
Inzamam-ul-Haq, for whom yesterday was little more than an extended net session, calmly collected his ninth successive half-century against England, adding an unbroken 73 for the fifth wicket in the final hour and a half with Abdul Razzaq. Despite the new International Cricket Council ruling allowing the draw to be called with 15 overs to be bowled, England persisted for seven overs beyond that, conveying the impression of industry to the last. Razzaq's clumping blow to the long-on boundary finally convinced Andrew Strauss the game was up.
England were undone by a pitch which got slower as the match progressed, offering little to the seamers, and certainly not the low bounce that had been anticipated to help make Steve Harmison such an awkward proposition. Panesar, though, spun his first delivery from the Nursery end sharply past the bat in classic manner and continued to find help, allowing him to bowl with four close fielders.
He did succeed in removing one of the main stumbling blocks when Mohammad Yousuf was leg-before to a ball that, delivered from round the wicket, pitched on about the line of leg stump and straightened to middle. Yousuf's evident displeasure was not justified by replays. Later Faisal Iqbal, stretching forward to another ball that turned away from the right-hander, was caught low down in the gully by Alastair Cook. In the end, though, time was of the essence: Pakistan closed on 214 for four, 166 runs shy of the target.
Too many marquee players - Andrew Flintoff for England; Younis Khan, Shoaib Akhtar for Pakistan - were missing for the game to produce the spectacle that might have been anticipated. Generally it gave the impression of being one-paced, lacking the ebb and flow of a real tooth-and-claw Test. Matches unaffected by weather are rarely drawn in England (two previously in eight years, apparently) but this had been heading that way since Inzamam and Yousuf - the man of the match for his brilliant double century - batted their side back into the match from the depths of 68 for four in their first innings and in reply to England's 528.
It may be different at Old Trafford on Thursday week when Khan will probably be back and Flintoff certainly will be, providing he comes unscathed through Lancashire's championship match with Kent.
Do not discount the possibility of a sudden return for Shoaib either, on what might prove to be a rapid surface prepared for Harmison, Flintoff and Hoggard. Misinformation is part of the game nowadays - Mohammad Asif's return to Pakistan last week was preceded by assurances he would be fit for this Test - and "miracle recoveries" are not unknown.
For a team who preach the power of positive thinking, however, this was remarkably negative from England. The cricket on Sunday evening, when Strauss completed his hundred and Geraint Jones (who had an exemplary match behind the stumps) shelved his attacking nature and batted to orders, was precisely of a kind that Australia will look at and scoff.
That England batted on yesterday for half an hour or so, adding 38 before Strauss called them in, shortened further their outside chance of winning the Test, not just by reducing the available overs but by precluding the availability of a second new ball with which, perhaps, to finish the match. In the event Hoggard might have been allowed one over with it.
