Saqlain Mushtaq stamped his influence on this winter's series by taking just 62 deliveries to shatter England's confident start to the opening Test against Pakistan.
Until Saqlain was introduced for his third spell of the opening day, England had dominated from the moment captain Nasser Hussain had won a crucial toss on a wicket which is expected to turn more and more as the match develops.
Michael Atherton and Marcus Trescothick were enjoying themselves with an unbroken 134-run opening partnership and all the pre-match fears about England's ability to play spin after such a long absence on the sub-continent seemed unfounded.
Less than an hour later, though, Saqlain had claimed four for 14 in 62 balls and left England hanging on at 195 for four.
Trescothick played in the aggressive style which has helped make such a success of his fledgling England career while Atherton provided a more studied and cautious approach, keeping the scoreboard ticking over with well-judged nudges and pushes.
But perhaps becoming frustrated at England's inability to keep the scoreboard ticking over, Trescothick attempted to sweep and rotate the strike, but mistimed his shot and the ball looped comfortably to Salim Elahi at square leg.
Atherton reacted to the untimely dismissal only seven overs before tea by driving Shahid Afridi's leg-spin to the cover boundary to reach 61 and join the likes of Graham Gooch, David Gower and Colin Cowdrey as only the sixth Englishman to have passed 7,000 Test runs.
A far more telling achievement would have been his first Test century against Pakistan, yet after witnessing the manner of Trescothick's demise, he followed in almost identical fashion by sweeping Saqlain to Yousuf Youhana at backward square for 73.
Alec Stewart pushed forward looking for the turn, only to fall leg before to a delivery which went straight on. That brought Nasser Hussain to the crease for a crucial innings with only 11 overs remaining.
Hussain began impressively enough by marching down the pitch to drive Saqlain back over his head for four. He tried again in his next over, but this time Saqlain spotted his advance and dropped a little shorter, forcing Hussain to re-adjust his stroke in mid-stride and instead of the ball disappearing to the boundary, it looped into the deep where Wasim took a juggling catch.
England: first innings M Atherton c Y Youhana b Saqlain - 73 M Trecothick c S Elahi b Saqlain - 71 G Thorpe not out - 22 A Stewart lbw b Saqlain - 3 N Hussain c W Akram b Saqlain - 7 G Hick not out - 6
Extras (b-3 lb-3 nb-7) - 13
Total (for four wickets) - 195
To bat: C White, A Giles, I Salisbury, D Gough, A Caddick. Fall of wickets: 1-134, 2-169, 3-173, 4-183. Bowling: W Akram 9-4-12-0 (nb3), A Razzaq 11-4-29-0 (nb1), S Mushtaq 30-7-61-4 (nb2), M Ahmed 23-4-69-0 (nb1), S Afridi 9-3-17-0, Q Abbas 2-1-1-0.
