Surbiton’s five current England internationals attended a civic reception at Staffordshire County Buildings in Stafford on Monday evening for them and the Pakistan national teams.

The occasion was to mark a series of three Tests between the two countries put on by England Hockey and Cannock Hockey Club supported by the county council.

That afternoon England, ranked seventh in the world, had beaten the Asians, world-ranked one higher than them, by 4-3 in an unadvertised non-capped practice match at Chase Park.

Of the Surbiton quintet only Richard Alexander and Matt Daly were playing in the 19-man squad against the Pakistan 17.

It was a remarkable victory after England had been 0-1 down at the interval to an Abdul Haseem Khan open-play goal on 20minutes and then, after further goals by Syed Abbas Haider on 46 minutes and Khan again on 56 minutes, both also from open play, trailed 0-3 with only 10 minutes remaining.

Pakistan had failed from their only penalty corner of the game in the first half and England from two in that half and one more in the second.

But then former Irish international Mark Gleghorne nailed England’s fifth such award in the 60th minute and four minutes later Pakistan were temporarily reduced to 10 men by a five-minute yellow card.

Cue another penalty corner and another comprehensive conversion by Gleghorne in the 65th minute, followed by a scything open-play strike by Martin Jones of Beeston to equalise two minutes later.

Within two minutes Pakistan were back to full strength, but a now-rampant England forced a sixth penalty corner and the former Loughborough Student and currently Instonians’ (of Belfast) defender Gleghorne duly dragflicked home his hat-trick and England’s winner with less than 60 seconds left on the clock. Alexander and Daly were joined by team mates Ben Hawes, Rob Moore and James Tindall for Tuesday evening’s First Test at the same venue, meaning that all five of Surbiton’s quintet were among the 16-strong squads winning caps before a large crowd, including many local Pakistani supporters.

But this time the young visiting team - including no less than nine of their U21 squad who finished fifth (to England U21’s 16th) of the 20 competing nations at the Junior World Cup in Malaysia/Singapore which finished only a week earlier – survived two power plays without conceding a goal when reduced to ten men by two five-minute yellow cards for ten of the 70 minutes (after the 22nd minute followed by a minute before half time and four minutes after it).

Akhtar Ali had given them the lead from open play in the 14th minute and Muhammad Irfan hit what proved to be the winner from their fourth and final penalty corner of the half in the 32nd minute to lead 2-1 at the interval.

England by contrast, without Gleghorne in the their squad, went back to their normal penalty-corner striker, Ashley Jackson of East Grinstead (not playing in the practice game) who equalised in the 20th minute from his second of two first-half attempts.

The second half’s main highlight was an extraordinary sequence of four consecutive England penalty corners between the 48th and 51st minutes (their only ones of the half, Pakistan had none) with each of Jackson’s drag flicks bravely run down by Ali, despite injuring himself twice in the process. The two remaining Tests are due to be played today (Thursday) and Friday evenings (both again at Chase Park starting at 7pm).

England, with Surbiton’s five players making up the second most from any one club in the country’s 30-stromg training squad, continue preparations for the EuroHockey Nations Championship in Amsterdam from 22-30 August with nine more international matches, three of them friendlies, before then.

First will be a practice game against world fourth-ranked Holland on Saturday week (July 18) at Bisham Abbey (3pm), followed by a full international, which spectators can attend, at 11am the next day against the same opponents at the same venue.