England lost another tight finish to lose a record eighth successive one day match after a highly-skilled Pakistan side held their nerve to claim a dramatic two-run victory at Lord's.

Having pushed world champions Australia to within three runs of victory on Sunday, England once again lost out in a dramatic finale with Saqlain Mushtaq showing his expertise by claiming the final wicket of Andrew Caddick from the last delivery of the match.

Saqlain's brilliant contribution capped an eventful final over, which England began needing nine runs for victory with two wickets in hand.

It included two wides, an amazing catch in the deep and four members of the Pakistan side once again confronting umpire Ken Palmer.

But the end result was the same as the previous seven matches for England - another defeat to underline the major gulf in know-how and experience they are going to have to breach if they are to become World Cup challengers in two years' time.

England's cause had seemed lost after losing five wickets in six overs to leave them needing a further 27 from the remaining three overs as Caddick walked out to the crease to join centurion Marcus Trescothick.

They began chiselling down Pakistan's advantage until they reached that final, dramatic over from Saqlain with Trescothick needing just four runs to overtake Viv Richards' 138 against England in 1975 and score the highest one-day innings at Lord's.

He clipped a two off his legs from the first delivery and England's hopes of victory were further helped by Saqlain straying down leg-side for a wide off the next.

Trescothick attempted to take advantage of the following delivery by attempting a slog-sweep which flew high in the air towards mid-wicket with both Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik converging on a possible catch.

Afridi arrived first and held it superbly despite colliding with Shoaib to end Trescothick's brilliant 142-ball innings of 137, which included three sixes and 11 other boundaries.

Caddick added a further single before the major flashpoint when Palmer, involved in a major row with Pakistan fast bowler Aquib Javed at Old Trafford in 1992 after warning him for intimidatory bowling, called yet another wide and prompted captain Waqar Younis, wicketkeeper Rashid Latif and Saqlain to remonstrate forcibly.

Instead of losing his concentration for the final two deliveries, however, Saqlain delivered brilliantly with a dot ball yorker off the next ball before having Caddick stumped by Rashid off the last to complete Pakistan's stunning triumph.

Chasing Pakistan's 242 for eight, England's reply had begun badly with Trescothick playing a leading role in running out opening partner Nick Knight in the third over to begin a slide to 26 for three.

Showing a similar determination to that which took them so close to beating Australia in Bristol, though, Trescothick and youngster Owais Shah responded with a superb partnership which nearly clinched a sensational victory.

They began slowly, their main objective to rebuild the innings after the early setbacks, and took 83 deliveries to complete their half-century stand with Shah showing impressive temperament for only his second match at this level.

Once they had built that platform, though, they took on Pakistan's attack with some flair, Trescothick taking a liking to the off-spin of Shoaib and struck him for all three of his sixes.

He completed a magnificent first year as an England player by reaching his maiden one-day international century with a controlled sweep off Saqlain for four and, unlike his two Test hundreds which have both been scored in losing causes, there was growing anticipation among the Lord's crowd that this time he could celebrate with a victory.

The turning point of England's defeat, though, was the loss of Shah with only 46 needed from the final 10 overs, showing his inexperience by backing up too far as Trescothick pushed to point and Younis Khan's throw beat him back to the crease.

Shah's 62 from 94 balls seemed to have set the foundations for victory, but instead it sparked a run of four wickets for nine runs in 24 balls with Ben Hollioake following next delivery in bizarre circumstances, pushing forward only to see the ball bounce backwards over his head and clip the bails.

Dominic Cork became England's third run-out victim of the innings and with Mark Ealham and Darren Gough also falling in quick succession, the scene was set for the dramatic finale.

Pakistan had also recovered from a shaky start with the returning Caddick claiming two wickets in an over to leave them struggling on 60 for three.

Their innings almost mirrored England's, though, with Yousuf Youhana hitting his second successive half-century and forging important partnerships with Younis and Rashid to guide Pakistan to their challenging total.

Youhana added a crucial 80 with Younis, who fell with 15 overs of the innings remaining, and forged a more aggressive 50-run stand with Rashid off only 48 deliveries to give them the impetus to reach their total and set up the closest one-day international victory at Lord's.

Stewart said: ''Today we've seen what a fine player Marcus Trescothick is and we've seen the emergence of Owais Shah - they were outstanding.

''We've had two very close games in the last two days and it's very disappointing to have lost them.

''We got ourselves in a winning position but at the end we couldn't quite get home. We couldn't quite finish the job off.'