sport news NASSER HUSSAIN: We beat Pakistan 22 years ago by digging in... and battling ... trends now
The task awaiting England in their three-Test series in Pakistan is chalk and cheese to the one we faced when we won in the dark in Karachi 22 years ago.
It was a different era and we had a different mindset to the England team under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum who will take to the field in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
The England team of 2000 was trying to rebuild under myself and Duncan Fletcher and, having beaten West Indies the previous summer, had started to go in the right direction.
Nasser Hussain celebrates England's dramatic win in near darkness against Pakistan in 2000
We had not played much in the Subcontinent at all and we set off for Pakistan needing to build bridges after the Mike Gatting-Shakoor Rana affair on England's previous Test tour there 12 years earlier.
Pakistan had a great side and were particularly strong at home. To use football terminology, for us it was like going away to Manchester City.
So we decided our best chance was to sit in for as long as possible on flat pitches and then try to nick it 1-0 at the end. Which is exactly what happened.
The pace of the game then was incredibly slow and judging by Australia's series in Pakistan earlier this year that might still be the case for England now.
But things can suddenly happen very quickly towards the end of Tests in Pakistan and you have to react.
My mantra to the England players was simply to 'just stay in the game' which sounds a bit negative but it worked for us even when some of our media were giving up on our chances of winning, decrying our efforts and calling it one of the dullest Test series of all time.
The first two Tests were drawn and it looked as if the final match in Karachi, where Pakistan had never lost a Test, was going the same way.
Hussain (centre) admitted his team had to dig in at the crease to emerge victorious in Karachi
Once Pakistan had scored 405 in the first innings and we had replied with 388, Pakistan could not really win — but we could. And they panicked, with Darren Gough and Craig White in particular bowling beautifully to bowl them out for 158.
You could just see Pakistan succumbing to the pressure. They were thinking, 'Could we really lose in Karachi?'
It left us with 176 to win on the final day and I knew light would be an issue because it can close in quickly there.
