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The draw was England's first in 10 Test matches

Former England captain Michael Vaughan has questioned whether the umpires were too hasty in taking the players off the pitch for bad light in the drawn first Test against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi.

England were 25 runs short of victory on the final day when play was stopped.

The umpires had to take the players off though because the light levels matched those that saw them curtail day four.

"For the good of the game, stay out there unless it gets ridiculous," Vaughan told BBC Sport.

"On the fourth evening it wasn't ridiculous, and it certainly wasn't ridiculous on the fifth evening. They have nice lights here."

England had reached 74-4 after just 11 overs when play was finally ended at 17:46 local time on Saturday, nine minutes later than on Friday.

And Vaughan said they "cannot have any complaints" because there were no complaints when the umpires went off for bad light while England were batting at the end of day four.

He added: "It has been a bad week for Test cricket, with the wicket and no-one watching the third and fourth best teams in the world."

Confusing end

Ex-England batsman Geoffrey Boycott also criticised the ending of the match.

"I feel for the game of cricket and the public," he said. "If you're going to have lights at all and use them in Test cricket then you've got to stay on. You might as well say we're not going to use lights at all.

"It's about the game and the public. We need to get more people into Test cricket.

"Even if Pakistan were trying to win we should have stayed on and play with the lights on. It's confusing."

Rashid's revenge

Speaking on the TMS podcast, Boycott went on to praise England's Adil Rashid, who followed recording the worst bowling figures by a debutant in history of 0-163 in the first innings with 5-64 in the second to give his side a chance of winning.

"It was a wonderful day's cricket and left us thinking why didn't we have four other days like this," said fellow Yorkshireman Boycott.

Adil Rashid came back from the worst figures by a bowler on debut to take five wickets

"When people get a sniff of victory, anything can happen. We saw the bowlers really trying to get people out and that's where Rashid came into his own.

"That's a marvellous performance, as good as getting a century on debut. To come from getting the worst figures, the kid did himself justice. He bowled superbly."

Pakistan poor with the bat

However, Boycott was highly critical of the batting of Pakistan's senior batsmen, especially Younus Khan.

Younus, playing in his 102nd Test match, mistimed a wild heave to give Rashid his first Test wicket, while Pakistan skipper Misbah ul-Haq also went cheaply.

He said: "I have just had to give Younus a trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board for being the highest scorer of Test match runs for Pakistan.

Younus Khan made 45 but fell to a mis-timed lofted shot

"I love him to bits. I helped bring him to Yorkshire. So I said from one Yorkshireman to another, 'you really don't want to know what I think of that shot you played'. He said: 'I know it was terrible, Geoffrey'.

"And Misbah did the same. Misbah played beautifully for his half century and then came down the track and tried to whack Moeen Ali over mid-wicket and got bowled.

"So they helped England, but England showed real spirit."

The matches are being played in the UAE because Pakistan have not played Test cricket on home soil since the Sri Lanka team was attacked by gunmen in Lahore in March 2009, leaving six players injured and six police officers and two civilians dead.