New kids off the blocks

It was a day for the new boys at Old Trafford. England blooded three brand-new one-day players, and while Pakistan had no actual debutants, their team bore little resemblance to the one that went through the motions in the World Cup.

England's new men were Rikki Clarke, Anthony McGrath and Jim Troughton. The jury's out on two of them: Troughton hit one beautiful boundary in his 6 before falling to his very next ball, and Clarke bagged a second-ball duck before collecting a first-ball wicket later on with a fairly ordinary delivery. But McGrath, who obviously enjoyed confounding the nay-sayers at Test level, did the double by playing a mature innings-stretching knock after wickets tumbled. McGrath milked 33 from 75 balls, and did his best to nudge England towards 200.

Vikram Solanki, not quite new but fresh enough to count as such, smacked one luscious straight four followed by a six in the same direction that reminded you why Ian Botham makes all that fuss about him, and his 36 in as many balls hinted at better things to come.

On the other side Mohammad Hafeez was a dead ringer for Saqlain Mushtaq with the ball, and did a passable impersonation of Mushtaq Mohammad with the bat.

But the unofficial award for new man of the match goes to another Pakistani. Mohammad Sami has been in and out of the Pakistan team as Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis have come and gone. Now they seem to have gone for good (not that you'd bet on that), and with Shoaib Akhtar suspended, Sami had his chance.

And he took that first opportunity to imprint himself on English watchers. Small and wiry, with an appearance and run-up like Aqib Javed of not-so-distant memory, Sami skipped up to the crease, all big hair and arms, and whirred the ball down at a stunning rate. He looks like a fifth-former, but the speedo was touching 96mph. He wiped out Marcus Trescothick with a peach from the McGrath manual (that's Glenn, not Anthony), and threatened until near the end of his spell, when he went for a few.

With the Lowryesque Umar Gul gangling in at the other end, Pakistan might just make up for the loss of Wasim and Waqar's 918 one-day wickets rather quicker than they expected.