Hockey: Wallis double has golden hue

England 4 Pakistan 3 after extra time

JIMMY WALLIS scored twice in England's crucial victory in their last game in the Champions' Trophy here yesterday, but the Teddington midfielder is unlikely to ever score a more important goal than his second in sudden-death extra time. That strike kept England's place in next season's tournament in Amsterdam - an important preparation for the Sydney Olympics and effectively moved England one place up the world rankings. For the first time in the 22 years of the elite event Pakistan will not be there next year.

Barry Dancer, the England coach, said: "We've achieved our primary objective for this tournament and we now look forward to the European Cup with a great deal of optimism."

Going two goals down inside the opening 21 minutes England moved forward with purpose, with Wallis scoring his first goal in the 24th minute at England's only penalty corner of the half. Four minutes after the interval Mark Pearn put them on terms after great work down the right by Ben Sharpe.

Eight minutes later Bobby Crutchley dived home to sweep in Calum Giles' cross to put England in the lead for the first time. It was short-lived as Sohail Abbass scored his second penalty corner.

England survived the temporary suspension of Giles and then failed to take advantage of Pakistan being reduced to 10 men as the game went into extra time. After chances at both ends Pearn won a penalty corner for England when obstructed by Irfan Yousaf. Russell Garcia, celebrating his 29th birthday and 278 international appearances, slammed the penalty against the post with Wallis coming in to finish the game off with England's golden goal in the 79th minute.

ENGLAND: S Mason (Reading); M Johnson (Cannock), B Waugh (Southgate, capt), J Wyatt (Reading), A Humphrey (Cannock); R Garcia (Harvestehuder, Hamburg), B Garrard, J Wallis (both Teddington); B Sharpe (Cannock), M Pearn (Reading), S Head (East Grinstead). Substitutes used: C Giles (Southgate), B Crutchley (Cannock), D Hall (Guildford).

PAKISTAN: A Alam; S Abbass; I Yousaf, A Saleem, W Ahmed; M Nadeem, M Usman, I Yousaf; M Sarwar, A Bashir (capt), M Shahbaz. Substitutes used: H Hussain, N Asim, D Kaleem.

Umpires: Jin Soo Han (Korea), R O'Connor (Ireland).