Related Link : Pakistan in England 2006
Pakistan’s preparations for the Lord’s Test were hampered due to injuries to their key fast bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Sami during the England A warm up match. Asif injured his elbow and is expected to miss the 1st Test and Sami was hit badly on his knee while fielding. Kamran Akmal had also sustained an injury during this match which was a bruised left index finger, but he is likely to get fit for the 1st Test starting on the 13th. England had their injury problems compounded with their strike bowler Matthew Hoggard who figured in this warm up match was accidentally injured by Tim Bresnan on his bowling arm during a game of rugby. Both sides are now forced to go in with weakened line ups for the First Test. The warm up game at Canterbury did not do any good for the visitors with the home side batting for most of the time in this four-day game. It ended in a draw with the Pakistani bowlers having to do lot of work.
England A after winning the toss elected to bat first and they made a massive 595 for 9 before declaring their innings having played 173 overs! Their Skipper and Test Discard Robert Key led from the front scoring 136. But the innings that stood out was from another Test Discard Chris Read, the wicket keeper batsman. Read impressed the selectors with a splendid unbeaten 150. England middle order batsman, Ian Bell had a nice knock in the middle scoring 74. Pakistani bowlers were frustrated by the no.11 bat, Stuart Broad who went onto score a half century and he had put on an unbroken 127 runs for the 10th wicket along with Chris Read. Leg Spinner Danish Kaneria was made to toil hard for his four wickets and he had bowled almost fifty overs in the innings.
Pakistan innings was rocked by Jamie Dalrymple’s off breaks and they were bowled out in just over 73 overs putting on 242 on the board. Faisal Iqbal, who had come in at no.3 top scored with 82. Salman Butt at the top scored 63 and no other batsman could go onto make a big score. Pakistan’s most experienced batsmen, Mohammad Yousuf and Skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq were dismissed for ducks. The two Off Spinners did the damage for England A with Jamie Dalrymple picking up four and Alex Loudon ending up with three wickets. England A in their second innings declared at 153 for 1 leaving Pakistan with a target of 507. Alastair Cook, the new find in this English Test Side remained unbeaten on 80 and Bell picked up another half century. Interestingly Pakistan, who were not happy with the length of time England A batted in their first innings, used part timers Salman Butt and Imran Farhat to send down 40.1 overs of the 44.1 bowled!
The match headed towards a meaningless draw with Pakistan playing the remaining 50 overs without losing a single wicket. The visitors used the opportunity to give some valuable match practice for Mohammad Yousuf and Inzamam-ul-Haq after asking the opening batsmen Salman Butt and Imran Farhat to retire after their good start. England A used all its 10 fit players to bowl including the wicket keeper Chris Read. The only player who missed out was the unfit Matthew Hoggard.
England A 1st Inngs 595-9 declared (Chris Read 150* Robert Key 136 Ian Bell 74 Stuart Broad 54* Alex Loudon 51, Danish Kaneria 4/158, Umar Gul 2/92 Mohammad Sami 2/97)
Pakistanis 1st Inngs 242 all out (Faisal Iqbal 82, Salman Butt 63 Abdul Razzaq 37 Mohammad Sami 28*, Jamie Dalrymple 4/61 Alex Loudon 3/28)
England A 2nd Inngs 153/1 declared (Alastair Cook 80* Ian Bell 50*)
Pakistanis 2nd Inngs 154/0 (Salman Butt 50 retd Imran Farhat 44 retd Mohammad Yousuf 35* Inzamam-ul-Haq 20*)
Result : England A Vs Pakistanis, 4-day match played between July 6-9 at St.Lawrence Ground in Canterbury ended in a draw.