Cricket: Wasim pumps up the power to outwit Waqar: Surrey struggle in the face of pace and precision in a Pakistan duel

Lancashire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .392 and 266

Surrey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260 and 302

Lancashire win by 96 runs

IN TERMS of destruction here it came down to whatever Waqar could do Wasim could do better, Lancashire ultimately celebrating with a haul of 24 points when their own Pakistani wiped out Surrey yesterday with a spell of devastation that read four wickets for four runs in 15 balls.

It was as it should be, of course. Wasim Akram is Pakistan's captain and while his vice-captain, Waqar Younis, had taken 4 for 1 for Surrey in a dozen deliveries on Saturday, this was the match-winning performance for Lancashire.

Hardly had the ink dried on the praises heaped upon Waqar than the left arm of Wasim was demanding that the script be rewritten. A hot day's work amounted to 17 overs of class fast bowling. Six of these were maidens and, while Surrey scratched around to take 27 runs off him, Wasim took six wickets.

Surrey had begun in the morning looking for a further 285 with all their wickets intact. The sound of clattering, though, soon reached the ear, even if at this stage there was no cause for undue alarm. After all, Surrey needed only to score at under three an over and the match was theirs.

In the first half-hour you might expect some damage, which was when Darren Bicknell found himself leg before to Wasim for 58. Then 124 for 1 became 142 for 2 when Alex Barnett removed Monte Lynch, the other half of Surrey's successful opening partnership, for 63.

Still the bells refused to ring while Alistair Brown and Graham Thorpe were in occupation. But the stand was worth 83 when a rush of blood saw Brown hole out to deep mid-on off Mike Watkinson with lunch just four balls away.

That was a clanger. Wasim warmed up by cutting off Thorpe for a half- century. Andy Smith and Neil Kendrick, though, resisted to the tune of 60 before Smith played on to Barnett for 44. But, from a tea-time score of 296 for 5, the rest was pure mayhem, Wasim ripping out Graham Kersey, Ray Alikhan, Kendrick and, by way of sweet admonishment, Waqar.