Test Match Special - Remembering England’s famous Karachi win in the dark

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

As England prepare to play Pakistan in Karachi for the third and final Test match, they return to the scene of one of their most famous overseas Test wins. 22 years ago, England won the third and final Test against Pakistan to win the series 1-0, only their second ever Test win in the country, and Pakistan’s first defeat at Karachi. Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton, who were captain and opening batter that day, are back in Karachi, working for Sky Sports. They’ve been giving their memories of that famous Test win to Simon Mann.

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with the Football Daily podcast. Listen on BBC Sounds. Now, back to your podcast. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Hello, this is Simon Mann. We've arrived in Karachi, ahead of the third and final test between Pakistan and England,

with England 2-0 up in this dramatic series. Well, this is the scene of one of England's greatest overseas test victories 22 years ago, the famous win against Pakistan in the dark, only England's second ever victory in Pakistan and Pakistan's first defeat in Karachi. Two of the players playing in that match, Mike Atherton and Nass Hussein, are here again. They're working for Sky Sports,

and I've been getting their memories of that game. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Well, let's start with you, Nass. A bit of context around this tour. You've taken over the England captain to see the year before. What sort of state was the England test team in when he went to Pakistan in 2000? I'd say we were just slightly on an upturn from a very low bar, I have to be honest. So it was a very slight movement upwards.

We'd just be it in the West Indies. Obviously two major things had happened that started that up. term one was Duncan Fletcher getting on board and properly on board when he when we joined together he didn't he stayed with Glamorgan he was so loyal so by the end of the summer he actually properly came on board but also central contracts really that was a key thing around that period we were actually just starting to feel like a team that played for England as opposed to a load of county cricketers coming together looking around the dressing room and going oh he's playing Hicks here

Rampra Crouch is here, Atherton's here, we'll go and take him on with this 11. I think that was the biggest thing I got around about that period. We were sort of formulating a team, and especially in Pakistan, where, as you know, Sai, you don't go off to bars and you don't go off to 100 restaurants or whatever. You stay around the hotel quite a bit. You go down to a coffee shop for a cappuccino. You all stay on a corridor in a room. You open your doors. You're all in each other's room.

We're playing corridor cricket. And a lot of friendships were made on that trip. that sort of started the feeling of an England team altogether. How confident were you going to Pakistan that you could make something of it? Not very because we hadn't played in the subcontinent that much. One thing that was very lucky for me, Atherton left me out of the England tour the previous winter, I think, wherever they were and picked his special boys to go and play with him. And I capped in the A tour out here and a little bit like the cricket out here at the moment.

We didn't get much cricket in because of fog in them. morning and bad light in the evening. John Embry was our coach and we had a great time and that tour was a bit of a bridge building tour after the Shakurana Mike Gatting incident. All eyes were on us a bit as an England team coming back in the A tour and we

had an absolute great time under Embers and Nick Knight and Ed Giddins and various players on that trip. So it's sort of put me in the right frame of mind with conditions on and off the pitch that were required to be reasonably successful

in Pakistan. But you haven't played much here at all, had you, in your test career. You played 100 test matches and? Yeah, only one in India, I think, certainly not in Pakistan, maybe one in Sri Lanka. It was a very different time, obviously a long time ago, 20 or years ago. But that particular era, I think mainly because of how different the financial economy of the game was, England basically played West Indies, who were very attractive side in the 80s and 90s, South Africa when they came back into international cricket, and Australia, we played those teams a lot, and we didn't go to the subcontinent. So as you say, by the time we came here to Pakistan, I'd already played basically 100

test matches or thereabouts. I'd played one in India and one in Sri Lanka. So that meant that we were strangers to the conditions. You know, NASA's point about coming on an A-Tor here. He was probably more experienced, and those 18 players were more experience in the conditions than those who'd been playing in the main team just because we didn't come here. And as you know, it's a very different style of cricket here. It's almost topsy-turvy to England where the ball will move significantly in England

and opening the batting say is very difficult here. It's the best place to bat. Your spinners often do the work with the new ball. You wait for the seamers with the old ball. It's really important to have bowlers who can reverse swing the ball. And we had on this tour, Darren Goff and Craig White, who were excellent reverse swingers. So we were just strangers to the conditions. And in a way, much more so than the cricketers now, who come to IPL,

come to PSL, young Harry Brooke, for example, who's just played so well in the first two test matches here. It's had a lot of experience in Pakistan, playing in the PSL. So 20 years ago, we were just very, very much. more strangers to the conditions and therefore the context of it slightly different and therefore you know a good win in the end because of because of how unusual a trip it was for us if you can remember back when you came on the tour did you think we're going to do well to win here yes I mean I knew you know a bit about the history of the game being a history student I've always kind of you know look back as much as look forward and I knew that England teams have not won

here very often, only once actually, before we came here on that tour. Ted Dexter's team had won a test match. I knew they'd never lost in Karachi, for example. England hadn't lost many test matches here either as well. It's just a difficult place to win because

of lots of factors, really, the shorter days, you know, dusk falls quite early. You sometimes have that fog in Lahore. Obviously, Pakistan have got very good cricketers and the pitches here are just flat. That was the one thing

I remember above all, actually. Just as an opening batter in England, when you're used to facing the ball, moving, swinging, seeming, and it can be really tough. I just played here for three test matches, and the ball didn't move once. I mean, it reversed, swung a bit.

Seemed to do a lot when I was batting, to me honest. Well, that's my point, that opening the batting here is the best place to bat. I mean, it just didn't see more swing. And I just thought, God, if I'd played my whole career you know imagine how many more runs you might have got opening the batting but in the middle order when the ball started to reverse for wakar and wazim it could be a bit more tricky for

sure i got two horror decisions that pitched about five yards outside leg i got ralpendi i got one not ralpindi fyslabad i think it was i got one that wazim bounced me and i ended up in a and e with phil neil looking if i'd broken my wrist so i think i average ten or something like that on the flattest and also the tempo comparing it to this tour where england are going to at what, 6.7, pushing seven runs and over. I think on that tour, the scoring rate was around about two runs and over, 2.1 or something. And even Pakistan played in a similar way. But going back to your question and that, I'm not his story in the game. I look at the opposition, really. And the opposition, that Pakistan side was still a very good side, if not great

side. And they had great players in it, like Syed Amwar, Wazimakram, Inzim, Mohammed Yusuf. We could not work out how to get Mohamed Yusuf out on that trip. the amount of meetings we had about Mohammed Yusuf, so Waka, you know, Danehrya was just starting, Sackley-Mushedat, one of their great spinners, their present coached. But I also realized in playing the subcontinent, and obviously my connections with the subcontinent, my dad or whatever, that you build up those players.

And the country, Pakistan, loves those players. But if you can put those players under pressure and get them in a position where they can lose and they can find themselves in a pressure situation, then it's amazing how quickly all that sort of love from the fans and the crowd and the public can shift. So the key for me as captain, because of the pitches, because of the conditions, because of reduced hours,

because of the side we had to a degree and we were going from a side that were serial losers, I was never going to make us winners, but we're going to try and be difficult to beat. So we're going to be difficult to beat on these pitches. And if we can nick it at the end, We can nick it at the end, but we're not just going to roll over. So that was my sort of mentality.

Stay in the game, stay in the game. And if there is an opportunity, which is completely different. I mean, it's a fascinating flip from where we were to what Stokes is doing the moment. They're not staying there. I mean, Stokes gave that interview to Ian Ward in the summer. Me, draw games like NASA did. You must be joking. And he absolutely means it.

They don't see it like that at all. We had to, to a degree. So if you come here and drawn three games, you said, actually, that's not a bad way going in Pakistan or not a bad result in Pakistan? Yeah, I mean with the side we had and what side they had and we'd have probably said because of conditions as opposed to that's what we wanted to do. You want to win any test match. We went in with the players we had.

You know, we had a good side. We wanted to win any test match. But if that was the end result, we had a walked away going and saying, well, they're the conditions. I think a couple of jernos, one in particular, and that last night in Karachi filed his copy saying this is the most turgid, boring series I've ever covered. It's going to be nil-nil. went to bed and woke up

and we nipped it 1-0 so it is amazing what you can do when that last game was fascinating psychologically it was fascinating because as we've seen in Adelaide as we've seen in various parts around the world when it's a high scoring game and you're getting into the fourth fifth day

that third innings becomes a really difficult innings knowing whether to stick or twist and that we always had in our favour well let's just talk briefly about the series first The first two test matches were drawn. What were they like to play? I mean, they were quite high-scoring, slow-scoring matches. Yeah, I mean, memory's a little dim now,

but I remember getting bounced a lot by Wazim in Lahore. The first test match was in Lahore. And Wazim, of course, I played with for 10 years at Lancashire. We were great mates, really. But whenever we played against each other, he just bounced me. And, of course, that was their policy, really. If the ball wasn't doing anything, the new ball wasn't doing anything, they would bowl a load of bouncer to try and rough it up,

and then they're waiting, waiting, waiting, a little bit like Stokes now, waiting for the ball to reverse swing for his seamers. That's what Wazim was trying to do. So I faced a lot of bouncers from Waz in that game. The other thing, I don't remember much around security. I think we just had a lot of freedom on that tour. Again, my memory might be slightly.

playing tricks, clearly given the levels of security here that we've just seen in Moultharn. My memory was that we just had a great deal of freedom around Lahore. We could go to the old fort, we could look around the city, and there was none of that kind of suffocating security that players have now. Yeah, I was trying to think of that the other day when we were in Moultharn, actually, and we did get out a lot more, and we would go to the High Commission. The High Commission became a hub for us a little bit to go and maybe get a beer or something or maybe get some English, you know, like the lads that wanted their English food, you know,

wanted eggs in the morning or something like that. They'd go and have their chicken or whatever in the afternoon. We used to go down there quite a bit. But the thing I mentioned earlier about the team spirit and the corridor and corridor cricket and doors being open. I was trying to work out what they were playing. It must have been before Xbox, but, you know, white and jar. The friendships that they form there, white.

Giles, Thorpe, Goff, you know, they will be there forever, just simply because we, you know, we had that stupid song, Who Let the Dogs Out? Fletcher, for some reason, the dullest man on the planet had this weird song that he absolutely loved. And when we went in the Karachi, we was in the dressing room singing who let the dogs out or whatever. So I remember that he was joining in, was he? He was joining in, yeah, I mean, which is quite remarkable. You know, Fletch actually, I take the Mick out of him. In those days, the team meetings and the physio we had, Comway and people like that, you know, the fines meetings and everything you got did wrong,

or we used to have a right laugh behind the scenes. And Duncan's public persona was completely different for what he was like in team meetings. He loved seeing someone being fined for the most innocuous thing. And, you know, he was also at the start of his coaching journey with England then. And as you know, Simon, having seen many captains, and coaches for England go through the mill. By the time he finished, which would have been six or seven years later, he'd had a great deal of success, obviously,

and was a brilliant coach for England and that wonderful Ashes series in 2005. But after that, through the Whitewash in Australia and then the World Cup of 2007, the criticism started to get to him, as it does to us all, and his persona at the end was quite different to how it was at the start. I mean, he was never outwardly a barrel of laughs, but with the team he had a very dry sense of humour

and obviously we all thought he was an excellent coach. Yeah, and a good technical coach as well for playing a spin. You know, some coaches will tell you what you're doing wrong or what you should do, but not how you should change it or do it well. So it wasn't for everyone. I know Athas didn't have like a forward press. And Dunk would try and sell it to him and Af would say, look, mate, I'm playing all right.

I don't have a forward press. I play spin fine, but he would work with Trez on the forward press and playing a spins. He'd work with Gailo about angles. I still say things on commentary to this day that I just know that I've nicked off Fletcher you know the game is about angles so the stuff with Ashley Giles bowling over the wicket

he was having none of it as a negative tactic just simply from where Ashley used to bowl Ashley used to get quite close to the stump so actually he could bowl a delivery that could pitch leg stump he's not just bowling it into the rough wide outside the leg stump so he was an absolutely vital coach to have in these alien conditions

when you know you're going to be playing spin he was crucial to that sort of series of wins we went on at that stage. Let's talk about the Karachi test match. It's nil-0, they're into December, Karachi. Pakistan never lost a test match in Karachi. And they're 320 for three in their first things. Well, good luck trying to win from there. Yeah, true.

And it felt like Groundhog Day. It felt like playing every test match on that Raupindi pitch that we've just seen, but without Basbel. It was they were going to do it slowly. That's what they do. They had a little bit more about getting a score and getting a hundred and getting a big first year. And we were exactly the same.

So it felt like Groundhog Day, here we go again. But the moment we got to the third innings and the moment we knew we couldn't lose and the moment they actually just started to shut up shop, that is when I knew we were back. we were in the game because the pressure shifted like I said earlier when they know they can lose and the stick they will get for losing in Karachi to our England team and the pressure there under I thought I could sense a shift in momentum in that third innings because you just

don't know whether to stick or twist you know the pitch is still on an absolute belter all these pitches don't the stats aath give about England having only won two games out here before this tour, you know, and lost two games, that shows the high percentage of draws because the pitches don't deteriorate like India. So that third innings becomes vital because you know you're probably not going to declare and set England something. And you know the pitch is going to be incredibly flat for England to chase down anything. So you just felt they were going nowhere. And similar to this tour, what with Stokes' captaincy in the reverse swing, we had two belters of reverse swing bowlers. I know they had a couple in one.

Weakar and Wazim that didn't play in every game, but we had Goff and White. And that trajectory, you know, Goff was our Mark Wood, simple as that, big heart, steamed in, took the pitch out the equation, and that spell, it would bowl the other day, just reminded me of Goff on that trip. And Craig White is one of those unsung heroes of English cricket. The quietest bloke in and around a dressing room you will ever meet. He made Thorpe look like, you know, Mr. Energetic chat a lot. sort of person thought

Whitey was so quiet but he was ideal for those conditions. Great player has spin in the middle order and that low trajectory, low arm, skiddy reverse swinging deliveries that when we got to 30, 40 over, they had a bit of a collapse in the first

innings from three down. When you got to a certain stage when it was reversing and then you had Giles at the other end, for once we had the sort of attack that could do something in these conditions. that was the third thing. Let's just go back to the second things there

because I want to talk about your batting. Not, afterton's hundred years ago. Please. Well, yeah, how long you got? It took a long time. That's what we were saying. It took a long time. 10 hours, 125 from 430 balls.

Mind you, Nassah, you made 51 from 209 balls. And our statistician, Andy Zoltzman, he came up with a cracking star, actually, joined the Rale Pindi Test match. You know, when England made 506 for four. after 75 overs he worked out that after 75 overs in the Karachi test match

when you two were batting together you were 149 for one that's a measure of how the game has changed and probably how much more talented the players are now than then but you know it's a different time a different era

pre T20 pre-Basball and really my own I mean even by my standards that was a slow innings but it was a grind. But was it calculated then? Was it really calculated? Well, the only calculation in my mind, as I say, I hadn't played a lot on the subcontinent then.

So the way NASA formulated, if I was commentating now, I would absolutely formulate around that third innings being very tricky. Really, I think my only thought at the time, as we walked out to batting Karachi, was simply our job is to get up to and beyond, if we can, Pakistan's first innings. And if we get to that stage, we can't lose the game or we ought not to be able to lose the game,

and they might lose the game if they start to just feel a bit of pressure. So how, I mean, the go slow wasn't particularly deliberate. It wasn't a, you know, I'm going to bat as slowly as I can. It was just that it was quite difficult to score freely. It was a very slow, low pitch. And they had a pretty good attack. Obviously, WACAR and SACLaine and people like that.

And it was 20 years ago when scoring rates in test cricket were three and over tops, probably, here in the subcontinent. So it was a combination of all those factors, but it was a grind. And I think NASA referred to the journalist who referred to it in slightly unflattering terms. I think that was Michael Henderson of the Daily Telegraph, who's a Telegraph's cricket correspondent then, and made his feelings pretty much.

known around the kind of entertainment factor in the innings but you know it did the job that's that's all i would say of that innings it did the job yeah i mean that that test match probably was more apart from the scoring rates was more like ralpindi ralpindi ralpindi was a great test match but for large periods after day one it was like you know can you get a result can you get a result can you get a result you know ralpindi was magnificent at the end there watching that last session and watching England trying to get wickets in the dark towards the end with the light closing in and time ticking away.

That was like that test match. You know, people often come up to me and talk about the Karachi test match, right? Win in the dark and people at home turning on their TVs and it's, you know, gloomy at home and watching us in the dark win, they've loved that test match. I love that test match,

but actually for four days, it was pretty dull. Watching Atherton Bat was pretty dull. Steve Ward, who must have been captain of Australia at this point, I think. After the test match, he made some comment in Australia saying, you know, it was one of the dullest games he'd seen. And this was after the result. And that's right. It was a spectacular end to the game,

but for a long period during it, it was pretty grim viewing. And that would be the same as the first test match here in this series, Royal Opindy. My view was that the Moultharn test match was a far better test match than Ruel Pindi. The glory of the game is about the balance between bat and ball, and that's really all test match cricket hinges upon, in my view. And if that balance is skewed certainly too far in favour of the bat, then it can become a pretty dull game.

Obviously, you can go to the other extreme, which is where we were in India a couple of winters ago, in Armandabad and Chennai, where it's too far skewed to the ball, although that's favourable to my mind than the other way. but the ideal for a test match is when the scores are between 200 and 300 and the ball is just slightly

on top of the back which is where we were in Moultharn so give me a Moultham test match over a Pindi test match any day of the week Karachi was a dull game for four days it was a very dull game but it did give us a glorious grandstand finish

and I know we'll get on to the finish in a minute there's lots of things that NASA will remember in particular when we were walking off just before the third innings we'd bowl them out in the third innings we were going to start the run chase and NAS said to me do you think you should pop down the order a bit

and he got a reply which I'm afraid is I can't repeat on the BBC but I know self-respecting opening bats for wants to go down the order do they? Well it wasn't just that it was I was actually playing pretty well that tour. I'd got runs in Lahore and Fais, Laban. I was playing confidently,

and I thought I was, you know, as good a chance as anybody of scoring quickly. My one abiding memory of that final innings is Mowin Khan, actually, who was the wicket-keeper for Pakistan. And as we got going, he was just smiling and very calm, and he said, you know, we'll never let you finish this game. It's going to go dark. The sun will go down. we won't finish this game.

And he looked like the calmest man in the world, but he hadn't factored in Steve Buckner, the umpire. So let's just round up what was happening then. Pakistan made 405. England made 388s. That was a lead of 17 for Pakistan. At the close of the fourth day, there was 71 for three. So, as you say, four quite dullish days.

There wasn't a sort of spark to the game. 88 runs ahead. Then the collapse. So England needed 176 in 40. over. I mean, these days they'd knock off in the back. About 18 overs. Why did you need 44 overs to knock it off? Because we had

Atherton at the top of the order, basically. Listen, that collapse was unbelievable. The pressure just seemed to get to him because it didn't do that much. It reversed a bit for Gough and White, and it spun a bit for Giles. There was a runout in there, a chaotic run-hound. Towards the end of that, 8, 9, 10th wicket,

I'm thinking, right, what's the rate, what's the rate? I'm looking up at the board, doing the mass, right, it's up at four and over. We've been going at 2.1 in the series. And then I'm thinking, right, what's my batting order? I've got to slip down the order because I can't get it off the square. We need to get Hick. We need him up the order. We need Thorpe up the order because Thorpe a little bit like,

I can see why Thorpe and Stokes got on when Thorpe was involved in that England cricket team. Because under pressure, as Goffey used to say to me, if there's one lad I want to push out the door at 20 for two, it's that little man, Thorpe. And I knew that Thorpe under pressure was the exact left-hand. exactly the character you wanted out there. So I'm formulating, right, moving all these players up the order.

Who am I going to move down the order? So nine down, I'm thinking, I'm going to have to go Atherton here and say. So I walk up to him, 10 down. I go, I walk up, walking, I'll go. What do you reckon, Chase, four and over, four and a half and over? Do you think you should slip down the order a little bit? And he just told me where to go.

He just told me, literally told me his exact stats in the series. The fact that he got 100 in the first, did he? He's adding some V8. and mayonnaise is here 20 years later. I might have politely suggested I was the best man to go. He rad off, said, I'm opening the batting. I went, right, okay. You're the captain, you're the captain.

I'm glad we had that discussion, F, yeah. So, you know, he opens. We get off to a very good start. But then the light is fading. You know, it is. And Mowing, I think they bowed something like 10 overs. It reminded me of the game where Gucci got injured in Trinidad, was it? where Desmond Haynes slowed it down.

And it was very similar to that. Mowing was slowing it down. And Steve Buckner, for anyone who's ever been on a field with Steve Muckner, is an excellent umpire, but he's a stubborn umpire. If you take Steve on, Steve will absolutely go at you.

And Mowing, by saying to Af, we're not finishing this game, by Mowing slowing it down so much, you knew that Steve Buckner was going to say Moll. And in fact, I heard when I was out there, he turned to Mowing, when Mowen finally was going at him really hard, he turned to Mowing and said,

Mowing, we are finishing this game. It was just after, I think, Thorpey cut one to Insey in the Deep. Now, Insey wasn't the quickest to move us anyway, but Insey just ran in the wrong direction. He went one way, the ball went the other way. And then there was histrionics from Mowen. My fielders can't see it. And also then the regulations were different.

Very different. I mean, there was no floodlights for a start, or at least I don't remember there being floodlights in the national stadium then. they certainly weren't in operation and of course the regulations then were that it was down to the the umpires would offer the light to the batting side now you'll see the

umpires put that like I don't think they had light meters then either they now put light meters on the stumps they take a reading on the first day and that's the reading for the test match so it almost takes that subjective element out of it now the umpires simply go on a reading and then walk off whereas back then

the umpires were using their eyes rather than a light meter and they would usually offer it to the batting side now of course we wouldn't want to go off but that does come a point when it's so dark and NASA's right Insey on the cover boundary when one boundary went past him

he just didn't move at all he stood there with his arms kind of outraised as if to say I just can't see the ball at all and there is a point where it becomes unfair to the fielding side as well that obviously plays into our hands because we obviously hadn't complained about the light so we've not played Buckner in any way at all

So I knew as a captain that we just keep going We just keep going until we're eight or nine down And then we're nine down We'll say we can't see it And Steve probably then has to say If the batting side can't see it We have to go off So we're now in a position

That great position that you're in in sport Where you can't lose And then the pressure is completely on them And not us What about the role of the other umpire I mean no one remembers who it was Yeah it was Mohammed Nazir, Pakistan umpire, just not involved at all.

It was Steve Buckner running the show completely. This was presumably then the period where we were with one home and one neutral umpire. So neutral umpires, a neutral umpire came in from memory in 92, obviously a few years after the Gat tour here in 87 when it would have been two home umpires. Imran actually was the one who pushed most of all for neutral umpires. Imran Khan, ICC moved to one home umpire, one. neutral umpire and eventually to two neutral umpires but we're obviously in the situation here with one home and one neutral and in that pairing there was always a senior umpire and buckner

was obviously the senior umpire at this stage and your point is a good one you just said who was the other umpire i couldn't remember him no doubt nassar couldn't bookner was the man running the show at this point and he determined we were going to finish this game and if i'm perfectly honest it was too dark at the end you know i went out there with my mind mince pies and wakars reversing in steaming in off the obviously he's getting his run up even further just to slow things down I think I nicked one a little bit like when he everyone remembers Atherton facing Donald no one remembers I was at the other end

and I nicked it same I nicked exactly the same I think Moim put me down diving to his right or whatever I could not see the ball at all and that's where thought become because when you're in and batting and your eyes become sort of accustomed to the light and I remember going off and just before we got into the rendition of who's let the dogs out and looking down on the pitch and it was just pitch black it was pitch black and all you could see the ground from

was the lights on in the dressing room and that was five minutes later so in modern terms it was far too dark but it was because Moin had slowed it down and because he had taken on Buckner Buckner was not having a bar of it did you trust Steve Buckner to sort of stick to his word that you know that it would play to a finish

or did you think there was a point actually no he's going to have to go off we better get this done pretty quickly once he had said to Moe we're finishing this game if you knew Buckner you don't mess around with Steve Buckner but obviously

as you know as you've seen out here you could be doing one of your interviews at the end of play and five minutes later you're in the bus and it's pitch black the light here compared to England goes so quickly that eventually

if we start losing a couple of wickets And the time taken, that's the problem with going for it, the time taken for the next batter to go in and mowing then would delay and set a new field and then it's black, you know, completely pitch black. Then obviously even Steve Bucknasser say, sorry NASA, we're going off here. So there was still a chance it was going to be a draw,

but thought was at his genius best. What was that moment like when he hit the, well, when the winning runs came? I did an insie because thought went to cut it. So I'm looking offside. He cut it behind, he nearly dragged it on, and went leg side, really, and, you know, usual me. I'm not, what did Harry Brooks say to Ben Stokes? I don't do that celebration stuff or whatever.

I did do that celebration stuff, and I ran back towards the dressing room, and I was finger pointing towards the dressing room because I had done very, as Ath reminds me now, he calls me the glory hunter that day, because he'd got all the runs, and I'd average 12 in the series, and I'm at the end, giving it the big, and, you know, winning in Karachi. And I remember pointing to the dressing room because I had done very little in that series with the bat, but the guys in that dressing, all of them, if you look through the stats in that series,

virtually everyone in that dressing room had made a serious contribution. Obviously, NASA's slightly playing himself down. He had an excellent and big role to play as captain. You know, he gelled a good performance or a great performance from the team in that series. There's a couple of things I remember, actually, from the celebrations.

One, as we all got in a huddle and we all started to, you know, do the team song, Craig White absolutely smash me on the end of my nose with his bat. He was waving his bat around and he clonked me right on the end of my hooter and I thought I'd broken my nose at that point. And then there's a wonderful photo, I don't know who took it, of NASA on his own, actually,

in the dressing room after the end of the game, after the end of the test match. He sat there in the corner with his camera, kind of head in his hands. And I don't know who took the photo, may Phil Brown or somebody you'd find it online, but it's one of my favorite cricket photos. I'm quite into photography and cricket photography.

And there was just a moment of stillness there and he was on his own in the dressing room at the end of the game. So, yeah, it was a memorable end to the game. I remember Darren Goff. I remember an interview with him and he said, we've won in Pakistan as if you'd cured cancer or something like that

I mean did it feel like an amazing achievement because of the context of what we've spoken about in the last half hour really because even us presumed nearly everyone that was involved in English cricket or Pakistan cricket in the press score in the media just presumed it was going to be nil-nil

you know lunchtime you know like this series as it's progressed you see England just slowly the momentum in the England side compared to the Pakistan side. You just feel they've got that too many good players and the way they're playing. At that stage, we were the underdogs

and we were not clinging on, but we were trying to stay, as Af just said. If they get 500, we've got to try and get as close as possible. So we were not in their shadow, but just stick close to Saeed, Anwar, and Wazim Akram, and Wakar Eunice and Sack, Moushtak, and Inzamam and Mohammed Yusif, stick close to them.

and we'd stuck close to them and everyone, even us thought nil nil will get on that flight back and that's a pretty good result and we were getting on our flight back very rarely in that era we were walking through and this is not a dig at af or stewie or Gucci or anyone really

because they had different cards to like I say about central contracts and fletcher or whatever they had different cards that they were dealt but in that era we often walk back through Gatwick and e-throw with our heads down a little bit you know a series loss away from home or whatever

not come out here in the subcontinent for so long, watching finger pointing from Gatting and Shakurana to sort of stroll back in Heathrow and Gatwick, 1-0, winning and winners for once. And in dramatic, glorious fashion with the lights on and Mowen and Buckner and Insey going in the wrong direction, it was just something to be pleased about. We didn't have a lot in those days to be pleased about with our team, but it was something to be pleased about.

The problem is we've been living off this now for about 20 years. telling everybody how difficult it is to win in Pakistan. And Ben Stokes has just come along and wipe the floor with Pakistan in two test matches. I'm going to tell you a story. So thanks very much, Ben. I'm surprised Zath hasn't brought it up yet, actually. Last night, we tried to get Zainab out here. Zanab has said there's some certain restaurants you've got to go to.

So there was one. She's a Pakistani journalist. Yeah. So she's given us a list. And we went there yesterday and they were fully booked out for two days. So I strolled in and went, ah, Nassar, who's a. Oh, Mr. Hussein. Well done in Karachi. Welcome back. So I walked out going, we're in, lads. Don't worry, we're in. Three hours later, we got the text. Sorry, we haven't got a table, Mr. Hussein. So my credit, I thought, was good in Karachi. But Ben Stokes has just gone, hold my fresh lime and soda, and we've come here and won two in two weeks. So my old gags of it's difficult to win in Pakistan have quickly gone out the window. The only one I've got left is it's difficult to win in Karachi. hope they put that right this week as well well we'll see i got one final question for both of you

so you're now forward 20 years you're playing in the basball era you know you're all this slow scoring in this series and you know you've given all the context what would you said to brenda mccullum others you got to score you know six and over well i'd be nowhere near this side albeit i would say that you can only judge people in the era that they play this is a a completely different era. If you were a young man now, a 21-year-old, if you're Harrybrook or whoever you are, you are in the gym, you're punching weights, you are making sure you are, you have the ability to play all these shots because you want to play all formats. I think if you're a professional cricketer, you want to play as a young man, you want to play everything there that's on offer

to you. So we would be very different players in this kind of era. But I stand here, real or sit here, not as an old cricketer jealous of the way they play or frowning at the way they play. I'm full of admiration for the way that this current England team is having a go and having a crack and playing a winning cricket, but also doing it in a style that is entertaining and optimistic. I thoroughly enjoy watching them play. It's just a very different game. For me, there may not be room for Hussein and Atherton in this era, but I still think there's room, because I think McCollum is a smart cookie. If it was Cook or Marnes-Labashane or whatever, your currency still runs. They're smart. Your currencies, if you're still getting

runs, that's fine, to be honest. Doesn't matter what tempo you're getting them at. So there's room for that sort of batter. What I've actually more admired, and I was never doubtful that this line-up would get runs on these wickets. While I've admired is a A, the bowling attack. For all of basball and the batting, the bowlers consistently get 20 wickets. To get 20 wickets on these last two test matches shows, A, the variety and skill in the attack,

but B, what a Captain Stokes is. For Stokes and some of the decisions he's made about when to bowl his spinner, when to rest his seamer, when not to give Anderson the new ball, and when to give Anderson the new ball, when not to bowl himself for a session, when not to bowl Robinson,

for 30 overs. Some of the captaincy, for all of Basball and all the batting, some of the tactical decisions that Stokes has made in alien conditions, as Athas written recently, he's probably proven himself to be one of the, if not the most influential captains England, have had for a very long time. He will be by the end, I think.

I mean, it's early days. He's only 10 test matches in, or nine, if you count, discount the one that he took over from Root back in. Sanampton a couple of years ago, but I think by the end he's going to be one of our best and most significant captains. I can't think of a captain who's had such a profound, immediate and transformational impact upon any sporting team, really, let alone an England cricket team or other cricket teams. So fingers crossed that it lasts. This is the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Our thanks to NASA Hussain and Mike Atherton who are out here in Karachi working for Sky sports. If you're in the UK, there's full commentary on every day of the test on BBC Sounds and five sports extra. We're on air from 425 on Saturday morning. As usual, we'll have a podcast at the end of each day's play.