England 5-1 Kazakhstan: Wayne Rooney to the rescue

There wasn't a mankini in sight at Wembley, but it was still a load of absolute Borats until England themselves resorted to archetype.

After 45 minutes in which Fabio Capello's men passed themselves to distraction, the Italian went for a more direct route.

And two goals from Wayne Rooney, strikes for Rio Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe and Aleksandr Kuchma's own goal maintained England's 100 per cent start to their qualifying campaign.

Beating Andorra by just a two-goal margin last month prompted fears that the qualification campaign for South Africa was about to turn into another Euro 2008 debacle.

Those worries had been seemingly dispelled three days later by the 4-1 demolition of Croatia in Zagreb.

The Kazakhstan team would have certainly reached halftime believing manager Bernd Storck's pre-match boast that Capello's men were not to be feared.

Maybe it would have been different had Emile Heskey scored inside three minutes.

Theo Walcott's far-post cross looked perfect for the Wigan striker, but the ball lodged between the legs of Heskey as he slid in before Belgian referee Paul Allaerts blew for an offence that only he saw.

At the other end, Tanat Nusserbayev managed to worry England with a shot that drifted perilously close to David James' right-hand post.

England were beginning to look as impotent against the Kazaks as they were impressive in Croatia.

And Capello's men trooped off at the interval to be jeered and derided by nearly 90,000 fans whose patience was beginning to wear thin.

Capello introduced Shaun Wright-Phillips for Gareth Barry on the restart - but within 90 seconds the visitors had squandered the best chance of the game.

Ashley Cole went AWOL at left-back and Sabrykhan Ibrayev's cross looked perfect for the leaping Sergey Ostapenko.

Wes Brown managed to unsettle the striker with a desperate challenge but the ball broke perfectly for Nusserbayev only for him to fire over from point-blank range.

England made the most of the let-off.

Matthew Upson leapt in front of keeper Alexandr Mokin when Frank Lampard swung in a corner from the left and as the ball dropped Rio Ferdinand was there to head home.

But the visitors continued to give England some embarrassing scares before the game was seemingly made safe in the 65th minute.

Lampard's dangerous delivery, this time from a left-wing free-kick, was again the key and Kuchma's determination to prevent Rooney from getting the decisive touch saw the defender head past his own keeper.

Yet three minutes later came the wake-up call.

Cole's woeful pass across his own area only put Nusserbayev clear - and this time his finish was emphatic.

At least Rooney eased the tension in the 76th minute by heading home Brown's cross.

And Rooney was on the mark again four minutes from the end, shooting in from six yards.

There was still time for substitute Defoe to replace Rooney and score England's fifth in the final minute.

WORLD CUP QUALIFYING GROUP SIX
RESULTS SO FAR
Andorra 0 England 2
Croatia 1 England 4

NEXT TWO
Wednesday: Belarus v England
Wednesday, April 1: England v Ukraine

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