Pakistan fight back but it's Dumelow's day
Azhar Mahmood saved Pakistan from embarrassment with an unbeaten 80 after an unknown off-spinner wrecked their batting at Derby
Nigel Gardner
09-May-2001
Azhar Mahmood saved Pakistan from embarrassment with
an unbeaten 80 after an unknown off-spinner wrecked
their batting at Derby.
Nathan Dumelow, a 20-year-old making his first-class
debut, took four wickets, three in 19 balls, as the
tourists crashed from 101-1 to 182-9.
But Mahmood and Shoaib Akhtar shared a last wicket
stand of 80 to give Pakistan a lead of 96 and by the
close, Derbyshire were 66-2 in their second innings.
As well as Mahmood batted, the day belonged to Dumelow
whose only other taste of senior cricket had come on
Monday in the Benson & Hedges Cup at Leicester.
To bowl for 22 overs unchanged against top players of
spin was a superb effort and he thoroughly deserved
his success after his second ball was hit for six by
Imran Farhat.
He kept his nerve and flighted the ball to take the
prize wickets of Yousuf Youhana and Inzamam-ul-Haq
before he bowled Abdur Razzaq second ball for a duck.
Derbyshire rate him highly and skipper Dominic Cork
said: "He is a wonderful talent. There are some good
players of spin among those victims."
Pakistan will be concerned at the way they struggled
against a weakened county team but will be encouraged
by the performance of Mahmood who played well in a
crisis.
Unfortunately there were some incidents off the field
when a small number of Pakistan supporters were
ejected from the County Ground after bottles were
thrown from a stand.
No one was hurt but the club's chief executive John
Smedley said: "We are sorry it came to this, I don't
think anyone knows what started this off."