Repeated failures of batsmen is set to cost England

On 125 points going into the three-match series in the United Arab Emirates, England slipped to 118 and hold just a one-point margin over second-placed South Africa, who can usurp Andy Flower’s men ahead of the April 1 end-of-season awards and claim the $175,000 prize for top spot.

To do that, the Proteas would have to win their series against New Zealand next month 3-0.

Pakistan have moved within striking distance of the top four in the world after leaping from 99 points to 108, just three behind India and Australia.

They also hold a 10-point margin over sixth-placed Sri Lanka, their next Test opponents in May and June.

England’s miserable Test tour of the Middle East reached an appropriately sorry conclusion with a 71-run defeat.

Andrew Strauss’s team had to banish memories of their previous failings here to have any chance of pulling off the second-highest fourth-innings chase in their history.

In the end, despite Matt Prior’s late defiance, they did not even come close on the way to a four-day beating at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

For the record, they mustered 252 all out in pursuit of 324 as Saeed Ajmal (4-67) and Umar Gul (4-61) sentenced them to their first series whitewash since the Ashes of 2006-07 which curtailed Andrew Flintoff’s long-term captaincy ambitions and hastened the end of Duncan Fletcher’s coaching tenure.

No such watershed is in order this time, after England’s first series since completing their march to the top of the International Cricket Council world rankings.

Their shortcomings, with bat but not ball, have nonetheless been all too evident over the past three weeks – and it is a measure of their fallibility that they should contrive to lose this last Test after having Pakistan 44-7 on the first morning.

The hosts recovered to 99 all out, yet this is the first example since 1907 of a team winning a Test match after falling short of three figures at their first attempt.

So often in this series, England’s out-of-form batsmen have simply been unable to establish themselves at the crease in these alien climes against Pakistan spinners Ajmal and Abdur Rehman.

The final act was merely a variation on that theme, almost everyone coming through the ‘danger period’ England identified at the start of each batsman’s innings only to then get out in pairs just when it seemed the habitual trend of failure might conceivably be bucked.

The afternoon wickets of Kevin Pietersen, Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan followed those of Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott in the morning.

Ajmal was the chief tormentor of England’s top order, bowling in tandem for much of the second session with Rehman – who was unchanged for 30 overs.

Gul then accelerated England’s descent to defeat.

But it was the slow left-armer who struck the first blow when Strauss went without addition leg before. Trott fell shortly before lunch, sweeping Ajmal straight to deep backward-square.

Cook’s luck was in during a patient 187-ball 49 which took more than four hours.

But England needed much more than a touch of good fortune if their out-of-form batsmen were to achieve even qualified redemption on this fair pitch.

Cook passed a notable personal milestone when, with his 22nd run, he became the second-youngest batsman in cricket history to reach 6,000 in Tests.

He was put down on 31 by Gul himself after mis-sweeping Rehman into the leg-side deep.

He was also the batsman on strike when Pakistan squandered their final DRS option, Ajmal reviewing an lbw for an off-break that pitched outside leg-stump.

England had one precious review still available, after Strauss used up the first one to no avail. But it was to be no use to any of their frontline batsmen.

Pietersen hinted at much better when he went up the wicket to Rehman and hit him for a straight four and then six in the same over. But Ajmal out-thought both Pietersen and Cook with conventional off-breaks.

He bowled Pietersen between bat and pad, on the front-foot defence, from round the wicket and then had Cook well caught at slip by a diving Younus Khan.

Bell and Morgan appeared to tame the spinners with the old ball, only to fall in quick succession when Misbah-ul-Haq turned back to Gul’s pace.

It was a lack of that which did for Bell, mis-timing a cut for a simple catch at cover and then Gul produced a fine delivery to find Morgan’s edge for a caught-behind.

England had lost two big wickets for just three runs for the second time in the innings, a statistic they could ill afford if they were to get anywhere near a tough target.

All but the most fanciful hopes of that were gone by tea and although Prior and the tail tried to salvage some pride with a counter-attack, it was little more than a token effort from a team seriously out of sorts.