The England squad for the tour was as follows: Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire); James Anderson (Lancashire); Ian Bell (Warwickshire); Paul Collingwood (Durham); Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire); Ashley Giles (Warwickshire); Steve Harmison (Durham); Matthew Hoggard (Yorkshire); Geraint Jones (Kent); Alex Loudon (Warwickshire); Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire); Liam Plunkett (Durham); Matt Prior (Sussex); Andrew Strauss (Middlesex); Marcus Trescothick (captain) (Somerset); Shaun Udal (Hampshire) Michael Vaughan suffered an injury in the second warm-up match against Pakistan A in Bagh-e-Jinnah, Lahore.

Marcus Trescothick (captain) Somerset; James Anderson (Lancashire); Ian Bell (Warwickshire); Ian Blackwell (Somerset); Paul Collingwood (Durham); Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire); Steve Harmison (Durham); Geraint Jones (Kent); Kabir Ali (Worcestershire) Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire); Liam Plunkett (Durham); Matt Prior (Sussex); Vikram Solanki (Worcestershire); Andrew Strauss (Middlesex); Shaun Udal (Hampshire) Simon Jones was also named in the squad, but did not travel due to fitness problems.

Pakistan won the toss and batted first, and scored heavily on the first day - with Shahid Afridi in particular punishing England's bowlers.

Inzamam-ul-Haq was run out in controversial circumstances - he was adjudged to have his foot in the air while avoiding a direct shy at the stumps by Stephen Harmison.

However, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff added 80 in 22 overs for the fifth wicket, and Geraint Jones and Ashley Giles held on for the draw.

England won the toss and chose to bat – and after a useful start where the openers put on 101, they were then regularly pegged back by Pakistan to end the day on 248/6.

In fact, he would eventually bat through the entire third day, which was an awful one for England where their only success was the wicket of the nightwatchman, Shoaib Akhtar, and that was only after he had made a score of 38.

Inzamam returned to play some expansive strokes with the lower order, and accelerate the scoring to an extent that it would be impossible for England to win the game.

Although Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell produced a determined rearguard effort in the second innings, putting on 175 for the third wicket, England would not be able to bat out the match.

Salman Butt and Younis Khan shared a stand of 117 runs at a rate of 6.75 per over, but mid-innings England's slowest bowlers came to the fore.

With ten overs remaining, Pakistan needed 88 with six wickets in hand, with Harmison, Flintoff and ODI debutant Liam Plunkett bowling.

Flintoff got two wickets in the 47th over to end the chase, but Strauss was named Man of the Match for his innings of 94, which included partnerships with every batsman except Trescothick and Collingwood.

However, it was Shoaib Akhtar who became Man of the Match, after removing Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss in the same over and coming back to take three more wickets while bowling.

Another stand of 44 took England to 74 after 13 overs, but Rana Naved-ul-Hasan repeated Shoaib's feat, and a full ball from Abdul Razzaq took care of Prior for 32.

However, Plunkett and Steve Harmison were out in successive balls in the penultimate over, and England set a target of 230 on a pitch that had been described as "flat and perfect for batting".

As it turned out, it wasn't enough - Flintoff, Harmison and Collingwood got a wicket each, but the Pakistani batsmen hit 34 boundaries in total - 138 of 231 runs - with Akmal sharing two 70+ stands, the opening with Salman Butt, and a third-wicket one with Mohammad Yousuf (who hit 28 off 68 balls) to carry Pakistan to 187/3 before he pulled a Harmison short ball to Solanki for 102.

(Cricinfo scorecard) Kamran Akmal made his second century in three days to help Pakistan take a 2–1 lead in the series with two games to play, and their highest ODI victory by runs since their group match with Hong Kong at the 2004 Asia Cup.

Neither he nor Steve Harmison could stop the Pakistani pair of Akmal and Mohammad Yousuf, as the two added 104 in 16.2 overs before Kamran was caught off Paul Collingwood for 109.

At one stage, Razzaq looked poised to get the fastest ODI fifty, but some good death-over bowling from Andrew Flintoff, who was the best of the English bowlers, ensured that this at least would not happen.