The Pakistan team during this period was arguably the strongest set of players the country has fielded in it’s cricketing history. We had Sohail and Anwar opening up, Inzy and Ijaz in the middle order , Moin Khan and Rashid Latif top keepers battling it out , and probably the most potent bowling attack in world cricket at the time comprising of Wasim , Waqar and Mushy.

England v Pakistan , Lords , 25-29 July 1996

Match scorecard: http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/c...atch/63716.html

The Pakistan team during this period was arguably the strongest set of players the country has fielded in it’s cricketing history. We had Sohail and Anwar opening up, Inzy and Ijaz in the middle order , Moin Khan and Rashid Latif top keepers battling it out , and probably the most potent bowling attack in world cricket at the time comprising of Wasim , Waqar and Mushy.

The 1996 tour to England was off the back of the World Cup in the subcontinent where Pakistan had been knocked out by India in the Quarter Finals. India had just toured and England had done pretty well but they knew Pakistan were coming with a point to prove. This tour was Pakistan’s first trip back since the eventful 1992 tour where Javed Miandad led his team to a 2-1 win, but was remembered for the ball tampering controversy and an altercation between Miandad and Umpire Roy Palmer.

To add a bit more spice to the game, whilst the test was in progress, Imran Khan and Ian Botham were battling it out in the court room over a libel case.

This was a time when Test Cricket was still on the BBC, Pakistan was a box office attraction and it was school summer holidays so I could watch every single ball.

My dad, brother and myself had tickets to the fourth day’s play which is the business end of the game and where the pressure is on. Which meant the first 3 days were in front of the TV and Teletext for when the cricket was interrupted by the news or something equally as insignificant.

Wasim Akram won the toss and put his team into bat first. Maybe he was thinking about the game at the same ground in 1992 when Pakistan batted last on the fourth day and nearly messed up reaching a low target if it wasn’t for heroics from himself and Waqar Younis with the bat. It was a bit murky and Simon Brown a relatively unknown swing bowler from Durham was making his debut. With the score on only 7 , Aamer Sohail left one he thought was going through and hit the roll of his pads. England had struck and Pakistan weren’t starting the summer well. Ijaz was dismissed pretty quickly and questions were raised over his technique in seaming conditions. But this brought the big man – Inzamam-ul-Haq to the crease. 4 years earlier he was the young gun who was a rising star after the 92 world cup win, but now Inzamam was the man . He and Saeed Anwar rebuilt the innings and he brought up his hundred with a 6 over mid-on. Inzy eventually departed scoring 148(his highest Test score at the time) and the day ended with the visitors on 290/9 with England looking to be ahead on points.

Day 2 began with Rashid Latif and Ata-ur-Rehman frustrating the England bowlers by putting together a fifty partnership. Now it was England’s turn to bat and the first opportunity of the summer for the famed Pakistani bowling attack to make their mark. Atherton was out early to Wasim, but Nick Knight and Alec Stewart started to put together a solid partnership. However Waqar wasn’t going to let the home side build a match turning partnership. He and Mushy took 3 wickets for 9 runs and Hick who had his troubles against the 2 Ws on the previous tour was bowled with a trademark Waqar inswinging yorker. Thorpe led a recovery and England ended the day on 200 for 5 and things seemed to be just about even.

On the third day Thorpe continued to play steadily and chip away at the deficit. England accumulated 60 runs, but then once again Waqar and this time his partner in crime Rehman took the last 5 wickets in the space of 25 runs. The tail was just blown apart by the pacemen, and put Pakistan right in the driving seat with a lead of 55. Pakistan in their second innings came out positively and Saeed Anwar scored 88 , but as Sohail picked up an injury the debutant Shadab Kabir opened up with him. At the close of play Pakistan reached 162 with Ijaz and Inzy at the crease.

So now time for our trip to the home of cricket, Lords. The weather forecast looked good, Pakistan are in control , Inzy is at the crease , life is good. I had been to a few county games and some of the tour matches in 92, but this was my first experience of a test match. We were sitting in the old lower grandstand which is square of the wicket on the right of the pavilion. The view wasn’t amazing, but the atmosphere was lively. It wasn’t the boisterous kind of Pakistani crowd which became familiar during the later nineties, but there was more of a sprinkling of support around the ground. Inzy and Ijaz pushed Pakistan to a lead of 350 and on a tiring pitch it was all about how much time will the bowlers need to take 10 wickets. After Inzy departed, Wasim made a quick 30 or so runs and then called for the declaration. Wasim had set a target of just over 400 and he and his bowlers would need to bowl out England with 4 sessions remaining, comprising play after tea and the whole of the fifth day. The 2 Ws came out pumped up and Waqar picked up Knight early with an LBW. The crowd anticipated an England collapse, but the reliable pair of Stewart and Atherton steered England to the close of play without losing another wicket. As Athers blocked out yet another delivery, an announcement was made that tickets on the fifth day would be available for £10 . My brother and I turned our thoughts to Monday and the possibility of witnessing a test victory.

So now to the final day’s play. Would Pakistan manage to take 9 wickets and take a 1-0 lead? On the way to the ground there was some drizzle around and it looked like there would be a delayed start. There were mostly young Pakistani supporters in the queue at the box office and it didn’t look like there would be many people in the ground. We took our seats in the upper mound stand where most of the Pakistanis seemed to congregate. Even though the crowd was in the hundreds , we seemed to be making a lot of noise with the “Zindabads”. Athers and Stewart carried on with their no risk approach from the previous evening. We got to lunch and it seemed the air hand gone out of the sails. No wickets and not a chance to speak of. Bumped into a few guys from School and we decided that we would probably leave early as the game would probably meander towards a draw.

After a walk around the shops we were refueled and the Zindabads were back in force, but more with a feeling of hope rather than expectation. All of a sudden Atherton succumbed to Mushy and Asif Mujataba took a sharp catch. A few minutes later Stewart tried to leave one pitching outside leg, it spun up his pads, up onto his left glove as his hands were trying to get out of the way and just looped to a close in fielder. Pakistan were in the game and now had a sniff of victory. The small crowd was now going crazy as this is what they had been waiting for all day. Now it was time for the Waqar and Mushy show. The crowd were chanting “Who’s the man with the golden hand, WA-QAR YOU-NIS”. Hick was the new batsman and the Burewala Express was steaming in under the afternoon sun, the Pakistani’s were looking for the knock-out blow and Younis was lining up the right hook, in the blink of an eye the stumps went flying , Hick was dimissed by another inswinging beauty. Now the crowd were almost delirious. This is what they had waited for four years. Cork was the next man with his head on the block. It looked like he was a dead man even before Waqar began the long run up from the pavilion end. This time not a yorker , but a lowish full toss, but the result was the same, stumps cart-wheeling faster than a team of IPL cheerleaders. With one or two wickets left and still a half hour before tea, we sensed that victory was now close and we may get a chance to run on to the pitch once the result was completed.

We and about 50 other Pakistani supporters ran to one of the lower stands at the nursery end. Saeed Anwar was fielding near the boundary and we were making so much noise he couldn’t hear instructions from the captain. Ian Salisbury put up some resistance with a 50 stand, but fittingly the skipper Wasim claimed the final wicket. We hurdled the advertising boards and ran towards the players, who anticipated the invasion and had already made their way close to the pavilion. We were on the hallowed Lords pitch, Pakistan had won the test match and the chorus of Zinabads was the only thing that could be heard.
With the TV cameras now facing the crowd , some guys started to sing “Botham is a Liar, Imran is a hero”. In preparation for the post match ceremony David Gower who was commentating for the BBC at the time emerged on the balcony and the crowd started to chant Gower is a hero instead. When Atherton made his way to get interviewed and collect the loser’s cheque, he was met with a chorus of boos. But when the victorious Wasim came out to accept the winners spoils he earned the greatest cheer of the day. Waqar won man of the match and the partying on the ground went on for another half an hour.

After leaving the ground and looking for the bus stop we bumped into Saeed Anwar and his wife around the ground who seemed kind of lost. We offered our salaams and congratulations. He was so down to earth and it was hard to believe that this was one of the premier batsmen in the world and he was happy to have a chit chat with a couple of random teenagers. We also bumped into Alan Mullaly , an English fast bowler at the time and he said something how he’d take us next time. We met up with some other guys at the bus stop and they boasted how they went into the Hilton opposite the ground and met Waqar and co as they downed a few pints. Not sure how true this was, but at the time we took their word for it.