AUSTRALIA v PAKISTAN 1989-90

Toss: Pakistan.

A match which looked in its earlier stages like being over with ample time to spare was eventually decided with only 22 minutes left on the clock. The playing conditions for the series would have allowed for another over or two to be added at the umpires' discretion, for time-wasting by the batting side (Pakistan) on the last day, and this would almost certainly have happened.

For the first two days, with the ball being well pitched up, the pitch offered the faster bowlers excessive help. But for a straightforward chance going astray, given by Taylor to Miandad at second slip in the fourth over of the match, Australia would have been most unlikely to gain such a vital first-innings lead as 116. In the event, he and Marsh made 90 for Australia's first wicket and batted through half the first day before being separated. In the next day and a half, however, nineteen wickets fell for only 241 runs. Wasim Akram impressed everyone with his pace and movement, achieved off a run of only a dozen paces, and returned his best Test figures. His dismissal of Alderman, as he finished off the Australian innings with a spell of three for 8 in four overs, was his 100th wicket in his 30th Test match. Alderman, Hughes and Rackemann also enjoyed the conditions, and it was not until the pitch lost pace, and the bowlers of both sides began to make the batsmen their target as often as the stumps, that the play changed in character. Towards the end of Pakistan's first innings, Hughes, from round the wicket, bowled five successive bouncers at Tauseef Ahmed without any intervention from the umpire.

Taylor's fifth Test century (322 minutes) in his last eighteen Test innings, and Border's dedicated 62 not out (262 minutes), provided Australia with the runs they needed for a second-innings declaration. It left them with a good ten hours in which to bowl Pakistan out again, and early losses in Pakistan's second innings suggested a quick finish. However, Ijaz Ahmed batted for seven and a half hours for a wonderfully accomplished 121, which was ended only just in time for Australia by a spectacular one-handed catch at cover point by Marsh, diving to his left to hold a full-blooded square-cut.

The fact that six leg-before decisions went Australia's way in Pakistan's second innings, five of them to Alderman, including the last wicket of all (with the batsman on the front foot), brought a good match to a somewhat contentious conclusion. The total attendance was a disappointing 68,865, with a best day of 19,989.

Man of the Match: Wasim Akram.

Close of play: First day, Australia 198-6 (P. R. Sleep 23*, I. A. Healy 33*); Second day, Australia 1-0 (M. A. Taylor 0*, G. R. Marsh 0*); Third day, Australia 260-7 (A. R. Border 51*); Fourth day, Pakistan 159-4 (Ijaz Ahmed 46*, Imran Khan 13*).