Coming Back To Me: The Autobiography of Marcus Trescothick. Marcus Trescothick

resolve to leave after the last in Karachi unbeaten was massive.

      In order to do so, after conceding 405 in the first innings, despite my first and, amazingly, only wicket for England – Imran Nazir, in a spell of one for 34 off fourteen overs at first change – Atherton had to be at his obdurate best.

      By this stage of the tour I had realised that if I was going to be playing my cricket at this level and in these conditions I was going to have to get much, much fitter. The penny finally dropped when I went for a run around the outfield with Phil Neale, our operations manager, and I was blowing out of my arse to keep up with him, even though he was old enough to be my dad. Phil had played many years for Worcestershire and as a footballer for Lincoln City and had always kept himself in shape, but this was ridiculous.

      By now I was knackered, pure and simple, so watching Athers bat for nine hours and 38 minutes to score 125 from the dressing-room couch was just what I needed. When we bowled them out for 158 on the final afternoon – Ashley Giles spinning out Inzy the previous evening had been the breakthrough and he finished the series with 17 wickets – leaving us 176 in a minimum of 44 overs, Ath’s marathon feat of skill and endurance became more than mere defiance.

      I had just about enough energy to make 24 in our run chase, but then Thorpe and Hick brilliantly took over. The Pakistan skipper Moin Khan tried every trick in the book to slow up the game; he knew what time it got dark in Karachi at this time of year and the shadows were lengthening fast. Soon enough the sun dipped behind the stands. We were still scoring at a good enough rate, with Thorpe and Hick running them ragged, but it looked as though we were bound to run out of time, balls, and light.

      Yet the umpires, Steve Bucknor and Mohammad Nazir, clearly miffed by the delaying tactics, seemed determined to carry on, come what may.

      In the dressing-room we were all going crazy. As per usual cricket superstition dictated that no one was allowed to move from their position. Nasser was doing his nut about the time-wasting, worst of which was the bowlers changing from round the wicket to over again ball after ball. It was taking so much time for the groundstaff to wheel the sightscreen into position every time the bowlers changed over, that Matthew Hoggard ran out of the dressing-room and started pushing it himself. And when Hick was out and Nasser went in with only a few needed to win, the light was all but gone. Trying to spot the whereabouts of the ball was nigh on impossible. The only clue you got was when one of the fielders moved and in the end it was so dark nobody did.

      I had no idea where Thorpe’s winning runs had come from until we watched the finale on TV much later. But when they did we celebrated in somewhat surreal fashion, by spraying bottles, grand-prix style, all over the dressing-room. No one seemed to mind much that they contained 7Up and Coke – no alcohol allowed, of course – but there wasn’t a drop of British Airways champagne left when we arrived home the day after.