Hockey: Supremacy maintained by Mayer

Bill Colwill

Egypt 2 England 3

England maintained their unbeaten record against Egypt in the second of their five-match Test series in Cairo last night, thanks to a brave dash down the striking channel by Chris Mayer to deny Egypt an equaliser at a last-minute penalty corner.

Calum Giles, with a penalty-corner strike in the fourth minute, his 50th international goal, gave England a good start. Egypt bounced back and were quickly on terms when Mohamid Samir scored at their first penalty corner.

It was Giles who restored England's lead from another corner in the 24th minute. Midway through the second half, England took advantage of Egypt being reduced to 10 men following the temporary suspension of Hassam Hassan as Danny Hall ran down the wing to lay on a goal for Russell Garcia.

With Egypt restored to a full team and England reduced to 10 following a yellow card to Manpreet Kochar, who had given an impressive second- half performance at centre-half, the physical Egyptians stormed forward with Mahmoud Samir taking advantage of a mistake by Ben Barnes to score with just three minutes remaining. With Mayer's help, the England defence held out.

David Whittle, the England manager, was impressed with the fast, powerful running of Hall, but disappointed that England did not score more. The third Test takes place this afternoon at the same Cairo venue.

ENGLAND: D Luckes (East Grinstead); A Humphrey (Cannock), J Wyatt (Reading, capt), J Halls (HDM, The Hague), B Waugh (Southgate); D Woods (Southgate), J Pidcock (Cannock), B Sharpe ( Cannock); D Hall (Guildford), R Garcia (HDM, The Hague); C Giles (KZ, The Hague). Substitutes used: Manpreet Kochar (Reading), A Simons (Southgate), B Barnes (East Grinstead), C Mayer (Cannock).

EGYPT: Hatem Gamal; Hassam Hassan; Adnan El Sayed, Amro Fatah, Abd El Khalek (capt), Yasser Abd El Mon, Belal Thrahim, Mohamed Sayed; Mahmoud Samir, Mohamed Samir, Musa Sayed. Substitutes used: Ahmed Zenhom, Emad Amene, Osama Hassanein.

Umpires: Mohamed Thabet (Egypt) and A Hoyes (England).