England slump to whitewash

Matt Prior

Published: 1:02pm, 6th February 2012
Updated: 7:24am, 7th February 2012

England's miserable Test tour of the Middle East reached an appropriately sorry conclusion with a 71-run defeat, and resulting 3-0 whitewash, against Pakistan.

England had to banish memories of their previous failings here to have any chance of pulling off the second-highest fourth-innings chase in their history. In the end, despite Matt Prior's late defiance, they did not even come close on the way to a four-day beating at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

For the record, they mustered 252 all out in pursuit of 324 as Saeed Ajmal (four for 67) and Umar Gul (four for 61) sentenced them to their first series whitewash since the Ashes of 2006/07 which curtailed Andrew Flintoff's long-term captaincy ambitions and hastened the end of Duncan Fletcher's coaching tenure.

It was Abdur Rehman who struck the first blow when Andrew Strauss, who had already survived a straightforward caught-behind chance off Gul, went without addition lbw on the back foot. Jonathan Trott then fell shortly before lunch, sweeping Ajmal straight to deep backward-square.

Alastair Cook's luck was in during an ultra-patient 187-ball 49 which took more than four hours. But England needed much more than a touch of good fortune if their out-of-form batsmen were to achieve even qualified redemption on this fair pitch.

Cook passed a notable personal milestone when, with his 22nd run, he became the second-youngest batsman in cricket history to reach 6,000 in Tests. He ought to have gone on Sunday night, dropped at third slip off Gul on just four, and on Monday morning was put down on 31 by Gul himself after mis-sweeping Rehman into the leg-side deep.

Kevin Pietersen hinted at much better when he went up the wicket to Rehman and hit him for a straight four and then six in the same over - shots that raised stoic England's scoring rate to almost two runs an over.

But Ajmal, scourge of the tourists with his doosras in the first Test here, out-thought both Pietersen and Cook with conventional off-breaks this time. He bowled Pietersen between bat and pad, on the front-foot defence, from round the wicket - and then had Cook, trying to push his 50th run to leg, very well-caught at slip by a diving Younus Khan.

Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan appeared to tame the spinners with the old ball, only to fall in quick succession when Misbah-ul-Haq turned back to Gul's pace. It was a lack of that which did for Bell, embarrassingly mistiming a cut for a simple catch at cover - and then Gul produced a fine delivery to find Morgan's edge for a caught-behind on the back foot.

All but the most fanciful hopes of avoiding defeat were gone by tea - and although Prior and the tail tried to salvage some pride with a counter-attack, it was little more than a token effort from a team who may not now still be top of that Test table when the annual awards are handed out at the start of April.