Yes, I corrected myself by editing my post above. He also saved an Ashes test at Cardiff, and the series, by batting for 69 minutes. He used to be very difficult to shift, and got his average over 15, but he’s gone backwards in the last couple years.
Pakistan win by 10 wickets and underline what I have suspected for the last couple of years. This England side is like a heavy weight boxer with a glass jaw. I saw this back in 2010 against Pakistan, when the Pakistanis had everything that could go wrong go wrong, plus implosions off the field and yet anytime Pakistan ever got their act together and played attacking cricket, England were in trouble. This is especially true of the England batting, Messrs Pitersen, Cook and Bell have come of age in the 2000, when bowling was at its nadir and while they can do well enough against India, Australia and the Murli and Malinga less Sri Lanka, a team with Pakistan (and South Africa) attack is going to ask questions which they cannot answer. Strauss is the key, he is the one batsman England have who is proven against good bowling and if he gets back into form, then England can certainly recover. And KP is a class act, he needs to stop being mentally shocked that he is facing a misbehaving ball and play it properly, like Oval 2005.
On Pakistan, a good performance, but the batting was at times too defensive which allowed England back in. I think Asad Shafiq needs to go and Umer Akmal should come in, a genuine stroke player. Bowling wise, I think the best hope is to drop A Rehman and bring in Junaid Khan, who has quite a lot of pace and reverse swing in the Wasim Akram and M Amir style, and considering how England suffered against Amir in 2010, I think its worth playing him
I don’t disagree with some of your post. However, let’s not read too much into one game.
I think England are a good side, however they probably got to number one due to a number of other sides declining as well as their own ability. England are well led, well coached and have good youngish players. You don’t get to be ranked number one if you are rubbish.
Flip side is that the series win against India is starting to look suspect, in the sense that India are not doing well here.
However, England are still ranked one and Pakistan 5 in the world and that won’t change.
I think the next 12 months will be interesting. If Pakistan are improving (I’ll have to take your word for that), Australia has a very good attack although the batting remains weak, and RSA are solid as ever the Tests should be a great guide leading to the Ashes.
IMHO India will take some time to address the decline of their star batsmen and bowlers so I can’t see them as a force within a year (in the sense of dominating- they will still be tough of course). Given that though, England have a pretty handy break at the top of the rankings.
Oh I agree. Its just one game, however frankly I am not surprised by the outcome because England’s deficiencies have been exposed and these have been obvious for a long time. These are remediable within this series and if I was England, I would look to exploit Pakistan’s weaknesses, which is the batting. I would also try to perhaps put Strauss down the order and drop Morgan (pity, I like him). A mindset change is needed, many batsmen got out playing poor shots, but they played those shots out of frustration, it was (as Cricinfo said) a suffocating line and length they were facing and most of the balls were very good. They did not get the opportunity to attack and were on the defensive from the beginning. The way to handle that is to play patiently and wait for the bad ball and punish those and put pressure on the bowling. And for gods sake, the best way to score runs in tests is to stay at the crease.
I think I am in mild agreement. The guys who looked good with the bat for England (Trott, Prior, to a certain extent Swann) played to the pitch. They denied themselves shots, tried to play with a straight bat and took their chances on the rare occasions when a bad ball came along. Tellingly, Trott got out playing a cut - a cross batted shot of the type that he had tried to ignore. Many of England’s players got out to shots that work on English type pitches, where the ball bounces more, getting up to a height where the cross bat shot works.
I think what we’re seeing is that the English bats, at least, are decent in their own conditions but are going to have problems on the subcontinent. It will require mental application of the type that is not common in Pietersen or Morgan’s games (for instance). Cook probably just needs a kick up the arse and reminded what he can do when he concentrates properly on building an innings.
The TMS crew came up with an interesting stat today. Over the course of the last however many years (I think it was 5 but might be wrong), only a quarter of Test matches got to Day 5. Given the conditions in the Emirates, losing days to rain is unlikely. The English batsmen need to be more disciplined and not get frustrated when they’re not scoring quickly - as there is a lot of cricket to be played - more than perhaps they are used to or even realise.
They also need a coherent plan on how to play Ajmal. Serious analysis aiding them in how to pick the doosra would be a good start.
I am less concerned about the bowling, as I have said repeatedly. Panesar and Bresnan may have made a difference but, given how Trott, Prior and Swann batted, there were runs in that pitch and the bowling unit for England did a reasonable job limiting Pakistan in the way that they did. A similar performance on a putative Day 5 with some runs behind them, and I think England would have been OK. This is not to say that they can’t improve in some measure - but they did a reasonable job here and were let down badly by the top order.
Its not the doosra, its the teesra (“the third one”). He developed it over the last year and has been an occasional bowl ever since.
I think England should defend against Ajmal and Gul, and try to score of Cheema and the rest.
Gul is 28 and has a Test bowling average of 33. He has played 41 Tests.
He had a good match, but a top batsman should be able to handle him given those stats.
They’re not picking the doosra either!
I agree with Cicero - Gul can be got; his stats indicate that he’s not all that. They definitely need some sort of plan for Ajmal.
Gul has improved by leaps and bounds over the last few years (before which his stats were closer to 50). He also has spent most of last three years being coached by Waqar Younis and he has the ability to get the ball to reverse after about 10 overs. I would watch him carefully if I was England. Ist Rehman, Hafeez and Cheema I would target.
Don’t know which stats you’re looking at on Gul - his average has been between 30 and 35 ever since the back end of 2006.
He had a very good year last year - but I wouldn’t attribute that to being coached by Waqar. I’d attribute it to playing tests against WI, SL, NZ and Bangladesh. In 2010, when he played Australia, SA and England, his average was 40+.
You’ve got to be careful with every bowler at international level, with few exceptions. But not attacking Gul (and being watchful with Ajmal) is chucking away 16-20 overs when they’re on together (and England have plenty of experience of this from when McGrath bowled in tandem with Warne). I know I said earlier that England have more time than they perhaps reckon but this would probably be going too far.
This is true to some extent, but I think you are over-stating the case. A lot of it is just the nature of test batting, where the margins between success and failure are very small, and one misjudgement can ruin a couple hours hard graft. We’re also seeing some rusty batsmen playing in unfamiliar conditions. The best players are capable of adapting their games, we’ll have a much better idea of how good the England line-up actually is by the end of the Sri Lanka series.
Strauss has 2 centuries in the last 3 years, while Cook has 10, Bell has 8 and Trott has 6 in the same period. He’s been in a prolonged slump.
Chances are that Cook, Trott and Bell will get it right sooner or later, but Pakistan have a great chance to wrap up the series before they do so. I’m less confident about Strauss, KP and Morgan.
Gul is better than his stats suggest, he’s played a lot of matches on dead pitches. He can trouble the best batsmen when he’s in form.
Strauss form has taken a major hit since he took over as captain (rather like Mark Taylor), however he is still the one I would back to turn it around. I agree with the rest of your post, Bell has always impressed me , while Trott seems promising. As for Cook well his Asia record is actually better then his general record, but OTH its boosted by two centuries against BD
Well rumour has it that Pakistan will play 3 seamers in the next game. They really should drop Asad Shafiq who is IMO a passenger in the side.
England playing Panesar. Well I suspect Monty will either be a stroke of genius or (I hope 
) a complete failure. He has always oscillated between these two throughout his career. Pakistan bat.
Strikes by Monty and Swann. England has apparently not played twl spinner in a lineup for more than 2 years. At first instance, seems to be working.
3 for 103 as I speak. I don’t know that I would have gone with Panesar- he just seems to not have improved over the years. (In saying that he will probably grab a swag of wickets). I don’t like Swann - he seems a PITA- but he is a far better spinner.
Well the bowlers are doing well but then they did fine in the first test. Broad is getting reverse swing which is a healthy sign, perhaps they’ll bring Anderson back in to exploit it against the middle order?
Here’s hoping that the batsmen have given their heads a shake and can do slightly better that the first test.
122/4 as I write, great start, all bowled. Misbah will be difficult to shift though.
204/5 as Shafiq goes for 58, lbw off Swann.
Just as the new ball comes due, so there’s a definite opportunity here for England.
…and, indeed, Strauss has just dropped a sitter from Akmal.