*Official* Pakistan in England 2010

[Faisal1985]

Well, as far as Swann and Umar are concerned, i haven't seen Swann recently but if he is doing better then Vettori then Umar is going to be a walk in the park for him...I have heard Swann is doing great with the ball and bat as well though....surely a battle to look forward to.

However, i am expecting some good knocks from the rookies, especially Azhar Ali. Hope he plays with brains and scores a maiden ton to solidify his spot and Mo Yo is forgotten about.

As far as the series is concerned. Well i give Pak a 30% chance of winning the series as of today. If Pak loses the first test that percentage goes down to 5. But if Pakistan somehow manages to win the first Test the stakes rise to at least 40%...and it will be tough for England to bounce back. This is a young team and once they know mentally they can win, they will...just my feeling. But get them down and low in the first test and you have nothing to worry about, they will self destruct.

 

[pakster]

You used the terms 'ok' and 'can be'
Those are the key terms..
Salman Butt can be decent...More often than not he is not.
Farhat and Ali look Ok. Ok is not good enough to win a test series.
Akmal brothers often dangerous. That means quite often they are not so dangerous..Once again..thats not good enough to win a test series.

Yeh, it was a tongue-in-cheek post Black Warrior. Sans MY and YK, Pak batting is hopeless. I fully expect an England series win, but won't be surprised if Pakistan win a test.

2-1 England.

 

[NasserFan207]

As far as I'm concerned:

England > Australia in England.

It took a combination of things for Pakistan to scrape a win against Australia.

If England don't beat this lot it will be almost as bad as losing to West Indies in the Caribbean.

I wouldn't say that. Pakistan are simply unpredictable. WI these days are more just mediocre in general. If Pakistan win, its likely because they've played really well, as opposed to their opponents sucking.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Pakistan basically have no proven Test class batsmen until Younis Khan comes back, with a useless tail. Their bowling is good, but it's still only a case of two very good bowlers and two mediocre ones. By some miracle they took their catches in the last Test but in the field there are still an awful lot of passengers.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Umar Akmal vs Swann. That will be the battle of the series. Expecting some serious tap from Akmal, but Swann to end with highest wickets aggregate at around 30 per wicket.

Haha Swann will take this all the way.. Akmal will score a brisk 30..smash Swann for a few sixes or fours and then Swann will have the last laugh..Umar Akmal is worth 25-30 runs to Pakistan..

 

[Black_Warrior]

As someone said before..to win Pakistan needs to bowl out the opposition for 88. As great as Aamer and Asif are..its hard to do that against a top quality side batting at home.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Pietersen vs Asif should be great.My money is on Asif owning KP

 

[Black_Warrior]

Mine too

 

[Black_Warrior]

LOL Shots fired

BBC Sport - Cricket - England unfazed by Pakistan attack - Paul Collingwood

 

[Black_Warrior]

And with Danish Kaneria providing a high-class spin option, many believe Pakistan have all bases covered with the ball.

Seriously, this is something I have found so perplexing...I find this everywhere..BBC, Cricinfo, SMH, CricketWeb you name it.. All these players, captains, commentators, talking about Kaneria and his high class... when has he ever done anything high class against any team in the world other than Bangladesh?? 7/188 against New Zealand?? Yeah 7 wickets..big fu**ing deal.. what about the 188 runs leaked??

 

[Migara]

Haha Swann will take this all the way.. Akmal will score a brisk 30..smash Swann for a few sixes or fours and then Swann will have the last laugh..Umar Akmal is worth 25-30 runs to Pakistan..

Akmal may get out to a pacie. Not to a spinner. possibly the second best player of spin after Sehwag. You cannot come out first ball and start square driving Vettori's arm balls if you cannot play spin!

 

[Black_Warrior]

Ofcourse he can play spin.. Even Mohammad Ashraful can play spin.. I have seen him score 3 centuries against Murali and trust me..that lad knows how to play spin.. on his day..Murali did not outfox him even once.. Problem with players like Ashraful and Umar Akmal is their shocking inconsistency. 18 times out of 20 they will get to a 30 and throw away their wicket. I dont expect Swann to be extra ordinary or anything.. I expect Umar Akmal to play a idiotic shot and grant Swann his wicket.

 

[Migara]

Ajmal will trouble English more than Kaneria. Especially players like KP and Morgan are in risk of getting out to him by losing patience or tring unorthodox shots.

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Ofcourse he can play spin.. Even Mohammad Ashraful can play spin.. I have seen him score 3 centuries against Murali and trust me..that lad knows how to play spin.. on his day..Murali did not outfox him even once.. Problem with players like Ashraful and Umar Akmal is their shocking inconsistency. 18 times out of 20 they will get to a 30 and throw away their wicket. I dont expect Swann to be extra ordinary or anything.. I expect Umar Akmal to play a idiotic shot and grant Swann his wicket.

Only problem with Umar is that he plays brainless shots....very like Sehwag in that regard..similar type of player (similar debut too incidentally -both scored centuries on debut away from home against a quality attack)

Ashraful on the other hand is just a failure...a horrible failure...like Venkatesh prasad or someone

 

[Avada Kedavra]

Ajmal will trouble English more than Kaneria. Especially players like KP and Morgan are in risk of getting out to him by losing patience or tring unorthodox shots.

Ajmal is more of a containing bowler whereas Kaneria is more of a wicket taking option.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Only problem with Umar is that he plays brainless shots....very like Sehwag in that regard..similar type of player (similar debut too incidentally -both scored centuries on debut away from home against a quality attack)

Ashraful on the other hand is just a failure...a horrible failure...like Venkatesh prasad or someone

Ashraful is a failure no doubt..but he also has a century on debut against a strong Sri Lankan attack in Sri Lanka in the second innings following on.

 

[AaronK]

Seriously, this is something I have found so perplexing...I find this everywhere..BBC, Cricinfo, SMH, CricketWeb you name it.. All these players, captains, commentators, talking about Kaneria and his high class... when has he ever done anything high class against any team in the world other than Bangladesh?? 7/188 against New Zealand?? Yeah 7 wickets..big fu**ing deal.. what about the 188 runs leaked??

I hope they replace him with saeed ajmal..

I am also hoping that they drop Malik for yasir hameed..

 

[slowfinger]

Umar Akmal is still one of our best players at the moment, and we have seen him play well controlled innings' before... I think we need a quality backup anyway like Misbah, really badly... Alam will have provided another glimmering chance but ****ing P C B... Anyways Akmal can and will imo prove he can play a well mannered innings, I think he will do it atleast twice this series, but really whats the point putting him 5/6, get him in at one down or open and see what he will craft, and although Farhat scored a gutsy 65, they needed 180 and the OZ's were bowling crap. Get him out for a while because his footwork is appauling... Get Umar Amin down the order or out of the team, Azhar Ali is really shining for me aswell, great technique and everything...

Pakistan should have:
Butt(c)
Ali
U.Akmal
Misbah
K.Akmal(wk)
Alam
S.Malik
Aamer
Gul
Kaneria
Asif

You can't really go wrong here, strong players upto 5-6 down, provides depth and still have the quality bowling lineup that we need.

 

[superkingdave]

Kamran Akmal at number 5? yes please

 

[Faisal1985]

Umar Akmal is still one of our best players at the moment, and we have seen him play well controlled innings' before... I think we need a quality backup anyway like Misbah, really badly... Alam will have provided another glimmering chance but ****ing P C B... Anyways Akmal can and will imo prove he can play a well mannered innings, I think he will do it atleast twice this series, but really whats the point putting him 5/6, get him in at one down or open and see what he will craft, and although Farhat scored a gutsy 65, they needed 180 and the OZ's were bowling crap. Get him out for a while because his footwork is appauling... Get Umar Amin down the order or out of the team, Azhar Ali is really shining for me aswell, great technique and everything...

Pakistan should have:
Butt(c)
Ali
U.Akmal
Misbah
K.Akmal(wk)
Alam
S.Malik
Aamer
Gul
Kaneria
Asif

You can't really go wrong here, strong players upto 5-6 down, provides depth and still have the quality bowling lineup that we need.

In your list I would never open with anyone other, if i have Alam in the playing 11 and no Farhat.

Second, Misbah is a big no no as far as i am concerned. He has not shown any sign of good form in NZ or Aus.

Must say that Migara made a good observation to switch Ajmal with Kaneria for the 1st test and the reason he has provided about the English batsmen is spot on....Kaneria is not clicking at the moment as much as Pak would like him to. Ajmal has a greater chance to do this...

Farhat is also a player who needs more confidence to come out strong and i think that innings provided him with that confidence, i wouldn't sack him now. If they wanted to drop him they should have done it before Aussie tour, it would be stupid to drop a person who came out of a match winning knock....I still think 1 of the rookies should be replaced with Hameed he is not a bad bat at all...i think he averages pretty decent in tests as well....it will add a bit of experience in the middle order. What's the point of bringing him and not playing him ahead of the noobs....

I would go about it something like this...

Butt
Farhat
Hameed
Umar Akmal
Azhar Ali
Fawad Alam
Kamran
Amir
Gul
Asif
Ajmal

I would pick Alam over Malik ATM. This is the worst i have seen Malik bat so far.......and i don't want to see him in the team...

Another problem he could pick with Salman is that Salman captain's Lahore and Malik captains Sialkot...in the last RBS T20 the two were rivals and have quite a bit of bad blood in the domestic circuit. Razzaq also sided with Malik after leaving Lahore because he was not given captaincy and it was given to Butt....i am just saying the way Malik is....who knows...