By Jonathan Agnew BBC cricket correspondent

England certainly missed a cool head

One thing you can rely on when two young teams meet each other is that the fielding will be brilliant, and that was the case under the floodlights at Old Trafford.

Outstanding catches, sliding saves and direct-hit run outs: we had the lot, which contributed to a lively start to a month of one-day cricket.

The only drawback from the afternoon's entertainment was the thoroughly intrusive, meaningless and utterly irrelevant blasts of music, which forced irate radio listeners and television viewers to switch off in their droves.

One day the ECB will learn that cricket watchers are intelligent human beings, and do not need to be subjected to such banal treatment in order to enjoy a match.

Pakistan would have been expected to look the more assured of the two teams, and in a desperately close finish, that was the case.

Their new-look team has already played in two tournaments recently while this was England's first outing since the bloodletting that followed the World Cup.

Pakistan also made the decision to use their allocation of experience in their middle order.

England's batting from number four downwards was, with the exception of Flintoff, new to international cricket, and that rawness was exposed as England stumbled from 96-2 to 169-8 in 29 overs.

Graham Thorpe at number five might have made for a better balance

The first three - Vikram Solanki, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan - were legitimately dismissed by the bowlers.

The rest all contributed to their own downfall and this ensured that England were always struggling to defend their modest total of 204-9.

Shoaib Malik, who took 3-26 from his 10 overs of off-spin, was particularly impressive and I wonder if, in hindsight, recalling Graham Thorpe to bat at number five for England might have made for a better balance?

They certainly missed a cool head.

England needed wickets, but Imran Nazir, Mohammad Hafeez and Yasir Hameed took Pakistan to 116-1, and Vaughan, the new captain, was left scratching his head, searching for options.

The answer was a brilliant, running catch from Anthony McGrath and the captain's own run out of Yousuf Youhana with a direct hit.

When James Anderson bowled Younis Khan for a duck, Pakistan were 139-4 but Malik and Azhar Mahmood steered Pakistan to within 24 of their target.

Although Malik became Darren Gough's first international wicket for almost a year, the length of Pakistan's line-up brought in Abdul Razzaq at number nine.

With the nerveless number 10, Sami, Razzaq steered Pakistan to victory with just four balls remaining.