Stokes now not playing in the remainder of this series, as he’s gone to be with his family in NZ (no info on what is happening, but his Dad took seriously ill in SA at the start of the year, so there’s an assumption it’s not good). Whilst it’s not significant in that context, the ability to pull a win like that off without substantial impact from Stokes is good news.
I’ve moaned before about the need for a repeatable strategy to win games. At one point, the worm was 8% chance for England to win this match. You can’t keep giving the opposition that much of a chance and then work on pulling another horseshoe out of your arse. England would probably have made 300ish in the 2nd innings here, had it been played to completion (the second new ball likely would have done for them). How about putting that total up in your 1st innings, then you can chase something more manageable than 280 on a wearing pitch?
Rewatching the highlights here, Pakistan threw this game away. There wasn’t a single maiden over in the Woakes/Buttler partnership, which, having watched again, I don’t really put on the bowlers. Fields weren’t tight enough to keep the pressure on. If Buttler is going to keep sweeping out of the rough to Yasir, eventually (and he did) he’ll get out to it (there was more than one prior to his getting out that ballooned just behind square where an alert square leg fielder could have caught him out). The pressure has to be maintained.
One thing you can say about England, at least in England, the matches aren’t dull.
I blame Azhar Ali fully. He should have kept and attacking field and dared them to hit it.
If you have a 6’7 strike bowler who has been unplayable all match, a kid who bowls 95 mph and a sooner who has struck in both innings, you back them. They might go for a few boundaries but a dismissal is guaranteed.
Azhars decision making will henceforth exceed this little gem from Kamran Akmal.
I blame Azhar Ali fully. He should have kept and attacking field and dared them to hit it.
If you have a 6’7 strike bowler who has been unplayable all match, a kid who bowls 95 mph and a sooner who has struck in both innings, you back them. They might go for a few boundaries but a dismissal is guaranteed.
It is difficult to disagree with this, at least. There is a reason why Woakes hasn’t averaged much over the last 12 months - sides have worked out that he’s got a weakness against the short ball. There should have been a leg gully and a man under the helmet at short leg and a bombing campaign targeted at his ribs. Given the delivery that had just got Pope, he’d have got out quickly had this been done when he came in. Buttler, as mentioned already, was playing chancy shots out of the rough to one of the best spinners in the world. Keep the pressure on and wait for the wicket to fall - men went back on the fence far too quickly.
I wish Akmal was contrivance. He just was that bad.
In what has always amazed me, is the fact that it turned out he was one of the players who refused point blank to fix matches.
No way.
It is just barely possible to accept the hard hands and lack of anticipation as a case of the gloveman’s yips but the run out “attempt” is in a different league
He takes the ball cleanly with his weight going towards the stumps and yet, defying momentum, biodynamics, kinesiology and every cricket wicket keepers core impulse from the Under 8s up takes his hands backwards and away from the stumps then over.
Unfortunately inexplicable things like this has been fairly common in his time playing. For instance
How the hell Babar Azam is related to him is something geneticists should study.
So, on to the second test. Bit of a stop/start day yesterday, and only an hours play today, but England bowling well and Pakistan on 155/5 at lunch.
In other news, Australia will be coming over to England for some short stuff in September - 3 T20s and 3 ODIs. The second T20, on September 6th, will be live on BBC TV!
After the loss of a day and a half of cricket, I have to ask, is it too much to ask English grounds to have good drainage or at least whole field covers?
Like in Sri Lanka
The drainage on English fields has improved immeasurably over the last couple of decades. The problem over the last couple of days has more been the light than the rain. Coming off for the light and then a fine misty rain comes in - it drains really easily but you’re already off the field and won’t go back on if it’s raining.
I’d be all for some solution for the light issues. Don’t know what it is though. In this specific instance, with no crowds and thus no issues with traffic congestion around the ground and all that, I reckon they should have latitude to get on earlier. The sun comes up at around 6am at the moment and sets around 8. We’re more likely to lose overs at the end of the day. So instead, start at 10 and try to go as late as possible to make some of the time up.
This has been a really poor advert for cricket - and not at all the fault of the players.
Has climate change led to more matches not being completed in recent years/decades? Seems like weather will only cause more issues for cricket in the future.
If anything, there have been more results over the recent past than draws, mostly because we have entered an era with quite a good crop of bowlers who are capable of taking 20 wickets in quicker time than a few years back. Also, batsmen seem to have a bit of a lower respect for the value of their wicket, aided by T20 expanding their shot range, so they’re more willing to try random stuff to get the game moving by scoring a little more quickly.
Climate change is a core problem for cricket though, you are right. In some respects, extreme heat could be as much of a problem as too much rain.
Robert Croft was on a Sky show where they were talking about this and he provided the memorable solution: more light.
It wasn’t quite as daft as it sounds. Essentially saying, 4 floodlight pylons may not be enough, so invest in more and better lights (there’s something in this I think - all the football stadia - and Twickenham - I have been to, have lights ringing the entire field and they’re usually these pretty high intensity LED jobs too). Also queried whether they should be playing with a pink ball full time (but accepted that the pink balls need significant work on them - the Kookaburras are even worse than their red ball efforts for going dead and the Duke’s hoop around corners) to improve visibility.
There’s now photos doing the rounds on Twitter of the ground bathed in sunlight too. It’s a disgrace really. They should have got more cricket in over the last 3 days. Obviously this is now going to be a draw, unless England do a spectacular collapse and Pakistan can either claim the follow on or bat for 10 overs to bump the total up and then have another go at us. Seems pretty unlikely.
The problem with playing in darker light, as Zac Crawley pointed out today, is that it’s fine until someone gets hit in the head by an 80mph ball he failed to spot. (Then the organisers get blamed for allowing play to continue). It’s never been entirely clear to me, though, why the floodlights are inadequate, or why it’s so hard to make a white/pink ball that behaves like a red one.
The problem with starting early (apart from TV schedules) is the amount of movement a seam/swing bowler can get on a cool, overcast morning with the dew still on the grass. Back when the old NatWest Trophy was played over 60 overs, the final was in September and started around 10am to fit the overs into the day. Invariably, the team winning the toss would bowl and would usually have their opponents about 30/4 in the first hour, after which batting conditions would progressively improve and the rest of the game would be a formality.
There’s probably a very good reason for this, but why limit tests to 5 days? Why not just keep playing until it’s finished? Maybe space the tests out by a couple of extra days, and you likely complete almost all of them.
It won’t happen but both teams could agree on making this Test a one innings game. I guess officially it would still be a draw but that might provide a bit of entertainment if there’s play tomorrow.