The 25-year-old has been out for a year after suffering an horrific broken leg while playing for Arsenal, but he was brought on by coach Slaven Bilic after an hour before laying on the pass that allowed Kranjcar to seal victory.

Romania, without injured striker Adrian Mutu, opened the scoring in the 22nd minute through Ciprian Marica but Croatia equalised through Ivan Rakitic before Kranjcar hit the winner with 15 minutes left.

Chelsea striker Didier Drogba marked his return to international action with an injury-time strike which earned Ivory Coast a 1-1 draw against Turkey at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium.

Drogba had not played for his country for more than a year before tonight but he tapped home late on after Gokhan Unal had put the home side ahead in the 11th minute with a curling right-foot shot.

Portugal left it until the 79th minute to seal their 1-0 win over Finland thanks to a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty.

Wales dominated most of their game with Poland in Portugal but went down 1-0 thanks to a clever chip from Legia Warsaw's Roger Guerreiro 10 minutes from time.

Iceland, meanwhile, travelled to La Manga where they beat Liechtenstein 2-0 thanks to strikes from Arnar Smárason and Eidur Gudjohnsen.

Greece and Denmark shared the honours after a low-key friendly at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium in Athens ended in a 1-1 draw.

Jonas Borring gave Denmark the lead early in the second half but his strike was cancelled out by Portsmouth's on-loan striker Theofanis Gekas, who bundled in Vassilis Torosidis' pull-back just after the hour mark.

Daniel van Buyten's double strike condemned Slovenia to defeat in Belgium while Ruslan Baltiyev's brace gave Kazakhstan a win over Estonia at Le Coq Arena by the same 2-0 margin.

Vitalijus Kavaliauskas, Darvydas Sernas and Andrius Velicka were on target for Lithuania in their 3-1 win over Andorra, who scored a late consolation from the penalty spot through Antoni Lima.

Switzerland's Benjamin Huggel scored in first-half injury-time to deny Bulgaria a win at the Stade de Geneve after Ivelin Popov had opened the scoring for the away side.

Valeriu Andronic cancelled out Goran Pandev's opener to snatch a draw for Moldova against Macedonia in Skopje and Yossi Benayoun's close-range goal in the 76th minute earned Israel a 1-0 win over Hungary in Tel Aviv.

Austria and Sweden played out a goalless draw at the Ernst Happel Stadion while Armenia's game at Latvia ended with the same score.