It II Cricket

Don't be fooled by the score. It was a flat track in Napier but Iain O'Brien was on a mission to make his last Test memorable and Pakistan's top order, as ever, was in a self-destructive mood. Imran Farhat lifted Pakistan from the depths of 59 for 5 and resuscitated his career with a fighting century but New Zealand will be more than pleased with their efforts, especially after a dogged batting display from the openers, on the first day of the final

Test.

Until Farhat produced his hundred it was all O’Brien. At one point his figures read: 4.2-4-3-3. He was hostile throughout his spell, consistently bowling over 140 kmph, and was always accurate but, even so, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that even he would have been slightly surprised by the results.

On a flat pitch, Pakistan's top order contrived to implode yet again by playing poor cricket. Only one batsman, Misbah-ul-Haq, was taken out by a difficult delivery: the rest were simply not

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good enough. Tim Southee claimed the initial breakthrough when Salman Butt left a gaping gap between bat and pad to lose his middle stump, after which O'Brien took over. And how.

O'Brien sussed out quickly that Faisal Iqbal was a sitting target because of his awkward feet movement and aimed one at his throat, forcing an ugly fend to the slip cordon. He tied up Yousuf with his disciplined lines and lengths before hurling one short of a length outside off stump. Yousuf thought it would be the ideal chance to break the shackles but was done in by the extra bounce and edged it to second slip.

It was the recurring theme of a bizarre morning. O'Brien tied up edgy batsmen with his discipline before delivering the knock-out blow with some thing extra. Misbah got a gem early in his innings: The ball held its line outside off and Misbah couldn't help edging it behind.

Fortunately for Pakistan, though, Farhat couldn't have chosen a better moment to resuscitate his career. It would be churlish to dismiss Farhat's effort as streaky, though there were several play and misses and a couple of curious slogs which would have raised blood-pressure levels in the dressing room, but that's how he seems to play. There were spurts where Farhat seemed to lose concentration and went for pressure-reliving big hits and there were phases where

he looked to be in control or something resembling it at least.