Sport Cricket - England in Pakistan

[ZeroTheHero]

Atkinson out for a fine 39 in a partnership of over 100 with Smith. 225 - 7

 

[holdsteady]

300 on this pitch would be a good score, needs The tail to stay in and Smith to have a probable career best knock, but would be a turn around from this morning.

 

[Jaboysmith]

Smith goes on a rather silly shot for 91, 243/8

 

[holdsteady]

Still a great innings from Smith, only worry is that it has shown you can score on this pitch.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Well our lower middle order got us to what looks like some sort of respectability.

Let's see if our bowlers can make anything of the pitch (and if the Pakistan batters can be tempted to play some poor shots!)

 

[Foley]

Pakistan 47 for 3
A long long way to go, but IF the pitch deteriorates from here, hopefully Pakistan have not produced a pitch where the toss wins the game.
Would serve them right!

 

[Marked Ox]

How did the Umpire give that out?! Nowhere near the ball.

 

[brokeandobscure]

Smith goes on a rather silly shot for 91, 243/8

I thought I’d read that earlier. It now says 89. Any idea why it was revised?

 

[Big Ron]

I thought I’d read that earlier. It now says 89. Any idea why it was revised?

A six was given, which turned out to be a four on review.

 

[ECYellow]

Game very much in the balance. England fought back well with ball in hand.

It's a big first session tomorrow. If we could eek 3 out before lunch we will have put ourselves in a very healthy position.

 

[McXal]

That was a really good day of cricket. Do agree with Hussain’s post-play summary that you shouldn’t be getting boot-high grubbers in the first session of a test match though - so a few question marks over the pitch.

He’s a lively, entertaining character but I’m starting to get quite irritated by Sajid - so enjoyed Smith and Atkinson giving him a bit of tap in their partnership.

England probably left 50+ runs out there with some indifferent shot selection (surely Pope has to be somewhat at risk now, and I’m still not convinced #3 is his best position - albeit he wouldn’t get in the side lower down!) - but the Smith/Atkinson partnership and some good bowling meant they really wrestled some momentum back. The first session tomorrow could potentially decide the entire game…

 

[ZeroTheHero]

I hope we win this. Not just because it is England, but because Pakistan's pitch preparation methods do (IMO) get pretty close to cheating. They were raking the pitch and had huge heaters and industrial fans on it to try and turn a normally pretty placid pitch into the equivalent of a day 5 or 6 spinner's paradise. It's one thing to decide whether to open the pitch to the elements or to cover it, to cut the grass very short or leave a bit there - and entirely something else to go to those extremes. So I hope it comes back to bite them on the bum.

 

[Isle of Wight Yellow]

It’s funny that people moaned about the wicket in the first test but, IF England win this test then:

• It will have been the only one which didn’t just go with whoever won the toss
• It went the deepest into the scheduled 5 days
• Saw some records and interesting batting
• Still allowed England to get 20 wickets

I’d much rather that than a raging turner which just means if you bat first, you win.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

I'll admit I was very wrong about the wicket for the first test. After the Pakistan first innings and England overhauling their total so massively, I didn't think it offered enough for the game to be finished in the time (never mind with a couple of sessions to spare!). How much of that result was down to the pitch and how much down to the Pakistani batsmen's tendency to buckle under any sort of pressure in their second innings is hard to say of course.

But if I had been right and the wicket was too flat for test cricket, at least it would have been as a result of just that - a naturally rather flat pitch. Playing on 6 day old pitches and ones that have been artificially dried out and raked seems like a step too far. I do understand of course that the groundsman will try to provide a wicket helpful to the home team ('twas ever thus), but this seems pretty extreme to me.

 

[Andy Stroud]

Pakistan 47 for 3
A long long way to go, but IF the pitch deteriorates from here, hopefully Pakistan have not produced a pitch where the toss wins the game.
Would serve them right!

I’m hoping that it is a pitch where the toss wins the game tbh.

 

[Foley]

I’m hoping that it is a pitch where the toss wins the game tbh.

I want England to win but not because it is a pitch where you win the toss and are virtually certain to win the game.
I am not sure that is what sport should be about?

 

[Andy Stroud]

I want England to win but not because it is a pitch where you win the toss and are virtually certain to win the game.
I am not sure that is what sport should be about?

I agree entirely with all of that, but… as we have won the toss on this occasion I’ll take it.

The issue of win the toss, win the game, seems to be a particular problem on the subcontinent. Pakistan obviously feel that they have found a winning formula by creating spinner-friendly surfaces for their bowlers, who I believe are getting more out of the pitch than England’s spinners.

 

[Foley]

A good morning for England
Pakistan 187 for the, 80 behind.
3 wickets for Rehan and 2 for Bashir in the innings to date.2 very young spinners- how good could they be?

 

[ZeroTheHero]

And a bad post lunch session. Scores level with Pakistan having two wickets left - we need to not let that tail wag!

 

[ECYellow]

Anything under a 25 run lead will be satisfactory. More than that and i think we could be in serious trouble.

Interestingly, i don't think the ball has turned anywhere near as much today as it did yesterday. Hopefully our batsman will bat with similar application as that of Saud and Noorman.

 

[holdsteady]

They are saying the ball does much more when its new than when its worn in so the tactic for when we bat is fairly obvious, whether its a tactic we will allow ourselves to follow will be the interesting question.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Pretty poor by England at the moment. Either we have gone completely off the boil, or the pitch has flattened out, or the older ball is nowhere near as dangerous. I suspect it is a combination of the first and last, unfortunately.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

England 15-0, still 62 behind. I don't like the way our batsmen are sweeping so much (again), it got them into a mess first time around.

 

[ECYellow]

Oh dear...I was hoping to have 5 hours of TMS for the drive up to Sunderland tomorrow, it looks increasingly likely the game will be done by about 9.30/10am.

Ollie Pope cannot keep getting away with his form (55 runs in 5 innings in this series and averages 32 across 50+ games for England), and questions will have to be asked of Crawley (avg of 32) at some point, too.

 

[Sarge]

24-3 in 9 overs is pretty poor from England

 

[Oufcrealist]

Shakeel showed how to play a TEST innings!! And Stokes mainly allowed him to, he didn't do enough to get him out. We have only got Root who can play an innings like that. Bazball won't win you matches on pitches like this, you need patience and skill.
Why do some of our batters particularly Ducket think you can sweep everything or hit every ball to the boundary.
Why didn't Stokes have a bowl with the new ball? Puzzling!!
And Ahmed should have bowled more.
The Pakistan spin twin's bowl with plenty of variation to unsettle our batters, I don't think ours did that. Whereas in the limited over games Rashid and Moeen have done.
Crawley and Pope need to up their game in NZ or dropped without question.

 

[McXal]

That was a pretty disastrous day all in all! Arguably winning from this position would be a bigger accomplishment than biffing 800-odd to win in the first test.

 

[yellowbow]

Well… I’m in my mid-fifties and can’t remember a more embarrassing batting performance than this shambles. Is ‘Bazball’ really taking English cricket forward or have we now just got a team of flat track bullies? In difficult conditions there’s no apparent plan, application or accountability

 

[BicesterU]

Well… I’m in my mid-fifties and can’t remember a more embarrassing batting performance than this shambles. Is ‘Bazball’ really taking English cricket forward or have we now just got a team of flat track bullies? In difficult conditions there’s no apparent plan, application or accountability

The latter. We’re not touring Asia again for three years, so there’s little need for this team to treat this series with much care. It’s all been about building a squad for the next series against India and Australia, which in itself is very depressing. I don’t think they care about this series.

India v New Zealand looks a good game though - might put that on instead.

 

[holdsteady]

We would probably have collapsed against Pakistan pre bazball to be fair, the one thing that hasn’t changed is we are still prone to a collapse.

Fair play to Pakistan, with their seamers the only way they were coming back to win the series was for the pitch’s to become complete spinners tracks, not often you will see two spinners bowl nearly all the overs and get nearly all the wickets over 2 tests/4 innings.

Been a weird but interesting series which hasn’t really answered any questions about this England team and baseball due to the strange pitch conditions in all 3 tests.