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"It was a match I'll never forget," Wasim Akram says. There shouldn't, in truth, have been much reason for Pakistan to feel optimistic going up to Headingley in 1987. They had never won a Test match there, losing three of the five the two sides had contested. England were on a high after their famous Ashes win in Australia at the top of the year, and only weather had prevented a trouncing England win at Old Trafford to kick off the series. "England's team was one of the best at the time," Mohsin Kamal, who played that Test, tells Cricinfo. "The Test [to start the series], England almost won. We lost a lot of wickets all of a sudden on the final day after lunch." But, in spite of Headingley's ominous meteorological reputation, the clouds parted just ahead of the toss. England won it, and opted to bat first. Pakistan's fast bowling attack at the time was perhaps second only to the West Indies', spearheaded by their talismanic leader Imran Khan and Akram, with Mudassar Nazar and Kamal for back-up. Kamal thinks that decision was curious, but it was a sunny morning with few clouds. And in any case, the Headingley surface at the time appears to have been tricky to judge, even for those quite familiar. "I cannot be definitive as to why we would have batted first, but probably on the grounds that it was probably going to get worse rather than better," David Gower says to Cricinfo. "But Headingley does tend to produce results. In the 80s it was still a pitch that hadn't really settled down. Throughout the 80s up until '89, the [groundsman] Keith Boyce worked tirelessly to try and improve the pitch. "Imran was so strong-minded and such a role model ... and he was very sharp at recognising when someone was playing with fear, which he absolutely couldn't tolerate" Mohsin Khan on playing under Pakistan's iconic leader "But it always did something until about '89, when something finally went flat. So anything through the 80s pretty much until '89, you always went out and expected things to happen. And it was normally the seamers, not necessarily the quick bowlers, but the genuine seamers who got results there." In that department, Pakistan were sorted. It had barely been an hour before England lost the top half of their side, with Imran on the rampage and Wasim a lethal partner from the other end. England were reduced to 31 for five, and though Ian Botham hung around with debutant David Capel for a 54-run stand, it didn't come without a cost. Partway through, a devilish reverse swinging yorker from Akram pinged Botham full on the left boot. It ruled him out of bowling for the Test. "Those were conditions we would have enjoyed," Akram recalls gleefully in his autobiography. "I remember the look on his face as he went down. 'What the f*** is wrong with you?' it seemed to say. Nothing was wrong. He was the opposition's most dangerous player. As such he was my number one target." Dazed by Pakistan's lightning start, England could only limp along, in more ways than one, to 136. Kamal polished off the innings with the last three wickets; the hosts had been shot out in two sessions on a sunny first day. "The pitch was good, but the sheer quality of the spells from Imran and Wasim just blew them away," Kamal says. "The ball was swinging quite a bit and they couldn't cope with it. "Imran used to tell me not to care that I might go for runs. He said I was in the side to take wickets. He was so strong-minded and such a role model, not just as a captain but also as a performer with both ball and bat. And he was very sharp at recognising when someone was playing with fear, which he absolutely couldn't tolerate." Some fear, though, may have worked its way into the Pakistan side when England responded strongly with the ball. On the second afternoon, Neil Foster put in a bowling performance that came close to matching what Pakistan had done with the ball, utilising the seam movement both ways to keep batters playing. After a pair of early wickets, he trapped Mansoor Akhtar in front, and four balls later, scooped up the big prize: Javed Miandad nicked off to the slips for a duck, and Pakistan wobbled at 86 for four. But Pakistan's lower middle-order managed to do something England had never looked like achieving in the face of Pakistan's pace attack - they dug in. Saleem Malik was impregnable at the crease for nearly six hours as he built half-century partnerships with Saleem Yousuf, Imran, and Ijaz Ahmed. It was the start of a supremely successful career in England; he ended up averaging over 66 in the country, more than anywhere else. Ironically, for all his doggedness, he was denied a hundred by the softest dismissal, driving a Phil Edmonds full toss to cover. "I remember Salim's 99," Gower says. "He played very well, he was the only one really to look comfortable at any stage, or at least make it appear as though he was comfortable, whereas everyone else was struggling." England were unable to make the old ball talk, a particular strength of Pakistan's over the years. Foster, in a later interview with The Cricket Monthly, admitted that he "could never bowl an inswinger". It dulled the English threat to the lower order, especially with Foster being far and away his side's best bowler; he took a career best 8 for 107 that innings. By now, though, Pakistan had doubled England's first innings score, and Akram played a devastating cameo to pull them further ahead, smashing four sixes in a 42-ball 43. It meant England would need to score 217 simply to make Pakistan bat again. But that, frankly, was never going to happen. Imran, ostensibly in the twilight of his career, tore through England in a memorable display of rapid seam and swing bowling on the third evening. He dispensed with the openers in the first two overs, and though Gower hung in grittily to score a half-century, there was little other resistance. "Ah, Imran," Gower says warmly. "Bless him, and my heart goes out to him with what he's going through at the moment. He could and would swing the ball whichever way he wanted, by and large, at decent pace. He's obviously one of the world's great all-rounders of all time. The Headingley pitch generally liked people who hit the seam. Imran with the swing added some extra dimension to that, of course. "But go back the same thing: the pitch, the bounce would have been a bit unpredictable, and you've got a swinging ball. I'm going to be coy here - the mysteries of how a ball swings are not for me to say. But from the batsman's end, all you can do is look at it and hope you read it, and play it or leave it accordingly. But I do remember vaguely in the dim mists of time, the ball was going everywhere." From England's perspective, it was a bloodbath. Abdul Qadir held up an end for a while and Akram took a couple of wickets, and a dogged little stand between Botham and Foster took the game to day four, but it was the Imran show. He took 7 for 40 in 19.1 overs, with England's wicketkeeper Jack Richards becoming his 300th wicket in the process, making him the first Pakistani to reach the landmark. His team just needed 31 balls on the fourth morning to skittle England out under 200. It was, fittingly, the Pakistan captain who took the final wicket, cleaning up Graham Dilley to make the win official. As they go into the first Test, it remains Pakistan's only Test win over England at Headingley, and their only innings victory in England to date. The final two Tests were drawn, and Pakistan had guaranteed, for the first time, that they would walk away from a Test in England victorious. It was one of three series they won in England on the trot; they have not won one since the end of that streak in 1996. "Imran was simply incredible," Akram wrote. "He took three wickets in his first spell; I took two, including England's captain Mike Gatting with a ball that came back very late. In our celebratory huddle, Javed chipped me: 'Why can you not bowl that ball all the time?' Imran interceded in that deep voice of his: 'Javed, you cannot always bowl exactly what you want.' "Yet in that game," Akram sums up, "it seemed like he could."