Pakistan had toured England in 1987 for a five-match Test series under the captaincy of Imran Khan. After losing the ODI series with a 2-1 margin, the focus shifted to the battle between two of the finest all-rounders the game has seen. Ian Botham and Imran Khan were ready for battle once more.
The first two Tests played at Manchester and Lord’s ended in a draw. The third Test at Leeds saw the Pakistani side win by an innings margin to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
Action moved to Birmingham for the 4th Test which again ended in a draw. As the final game moved to the Oval, England had to win the game to ensure that Pakistan didn’t walk away with their first-ever series win in England.
Javed Miandad and Pakistan win their first series in England
Batting first Pakistan lost Mansoor Akhtar early to Graham Dilley for 6 while Ramiz Raja was out to Ian Botham for 14. Muddassar Nazar and Javed Miandad then added 103 runs for the third wicket. Ian Botham broke that stand when he dismissed Mudassar Nazar for 73 off 142 balls.
More misery was in store for the home team as Saleem Malik and Javed Miandad added 234 runs for the 4th wicket. Once Malik was out for 102, captain Imran Khan and Miandad added 191 runs for the 5th wicket. Javed Miandad was finally out for 260 off 521 balls having batted for over 10 hours.
Imran Khan scored 108 runs off 211 balls before he was run out as Ijaz Ahmed scored 69 runs and Saleem Yousuf was out for 42. This enabled Pakistan to post a massive score of 708 runs on the board having batted for over 220 overs and the better part of over two days.
England were all out for 232 in the first innings with Abdul Qadir picking 7 wickets. Asked to follow on, the home team scored 315/4 when the stumps were drawn as skipper Mike Gatting was not out on 150. While England saved face in the game they couldn’t prevent Pakistan from scoring their highest ever Test total at that point and also winning their first series in England.
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