***Official*** Pakistan and England in UAE

[BeeGee]

Pieterson scored more than Morgan, so his score should be higher.

Nope.

Pietersen scored 67 runs at an average of 11.16
Morgan scored 82 runs at an average of 13.66

 

[Viscount Tom]

A fair bit I'd say in the seaming conditions aspect as for spinners its easily equal and probably a fair bit better.

I don't buy into this Anderson's crappy on the SC bollocks that some people spout. I reckon he'll adapt, he wasn't poor by any means this series.

 

[social]

England has the best bowling attack. But how far behind do you think Pakistan's bowling is in the SC and in seaming conditions like England (genuine question)?

In England, Pakistan's attack would be lucky to rank in the top 4

Eng, SA, and Oz are all a lot better

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Hopefully we will unearth some good pacers.

 

[Viscount Tom]

In England, Pakistan's attack would be lucky to rank in the top 4

Eng, SA, and Oz are all a lot better

So they'd actually fit quite nicely into the no.4 slot.

 

[social]

So they'd actually fit quite nicely into the no.4 slot.

In England, they would need 3 seamers and they have one (Gul) of any quality

There is a very strong argument to be had that both NZ and WI would have better attacks in those conditions

Really cannot imagine the current Pakistan team winning many tests in England, SA or Australia tbh

They "may" sneak one at the Oval at the end of a series on a dust bowl

They "may" sneak one in SA if the home side have a brain snap

No hope in Oz as they simply dont have the batting

 

[Viscount Tom]

Even when the Oval's a dustbowl it still tends to have a bit of pace and carry anyway.

But yeah I see your points. When do Pakistan tour either Aus, SA or England again anyway?

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Erm, you have only seen Gul. We have better bowlers in the domestic level than him.

 

[BeeGee]

So they'd actually fit quite nicely into the no.4 slot.

Nah, mate.

NZ test bowling averages in the last 12 months:
DAJ Bracewell 16.47
CS Martin 19.42
TA Boult 19.83
DL Vettori 23.27
TG Southee 35.85

 

[Prince EWS]

Erm, you have only seen Gul. We have better bowlers in the domestic level than him.

Sami.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

There's Sadaf Hussain, Bilawal Bhatti, Rahat Ali. And a few more as well.

 

[Prince EWS]

There's Sadaf Hussain, Bilawal Bhatti, Rahat Ali. And a few more as well.

Samiiiiiiii

 

[social]

Even when the Oval's a dustbowl it still tends to have a bit of pace and carry anyway.

But yeah I see your points. When do Pakistan tour either Aus, SA or England again anyway?

No idea

BTW, I dont think Australia are the best team (far from it, in fact), it's just that Pakistan dont match up well against us

Ponting, Hussey and Clarke would whack their spinners all day in Oz conditions whilst Younis is Pakistan's only half decent player of quicks when the ball bounces above shin height

Same way as we wont match up well against England for about 2-3 years

 

[CWB304]

It's one of the most well thought-out techniques in cricket. By getting forward and across he largely takes lbw out of the equation and it makes his decisions on what to play and what to leave very easy. By not driving through the off-side (always a good idea in England) he takes the slips out of the game too, and he's strong enough on his pads that he's very unlikely to just miss a straight one.

That's why he scored about a million runs in that series, despite not appearing to be in the best touch. If you're not nicking him out behind the wicket on the off-side and you're not threatening the stumps, you're probably not going to get him out. Dhoni was often forced to resort to bowling to a leg slip or bowling short or some similarly speculative plan. It's probably the best example I've seen of a batsman using a clever technique to score runs despite mediocre form.

I see your point, but it never looked natural, at no point did he look like he "owned" this new technique. Because it was clearly not the way he learnt to bat, he time and again nearly got himself out to straightforward deliveries. Under the gun and against top class opposition such methods nearly always fall apart, and he surely would have known that. I doubt he would have tried to bat like that against Dale Steyn, and even Praveen troubled him numerous times throughout that series.

Given that such an artificial technique was unlikely to work against better bowlers than the ones he was up against - I rate Praveen but he needs to be doing what he does at least 10kph faster to be a genuine threat at Test level, and the other bowlers were just garbage - why was he trying it at all?

The great players when out of form have played themselves back into it by playing more watchfully than usual, eschewing risky shots and only punishing the really bad deliveries. Once they have built up the confidence and relocated their off stump they start playing all their shots again.

If he did adopt this technique in the knowledge that it would furnish only short-term benefits, far from being a masterstroke, it may end up having been the mistake that cost him his England career. Looking back to how he got out playing across straight ones that he never used to miss before in this series I am wondering whether it is not this new approach that has made him look so fallible to straight balls from slow bowlers.

 

[Furball]

It was top class bowling and if you'd watched the series you'd know that. And they've skittled every line up they've come up against in the past few years so I dot know what more you could ask.

Yeah...but...they won't do well in the subcontinent. Because...well...I said so, and because I hate stats so much, I'll just ignore every bit of evidence you use to contradict my idiotic opinion.

 

[gimhkichoot]

3-0

Spot on

 

[hazsa19]

I see your point, but it never looked natural, at no point did he look like he "owned" this new technique. Because it was clearly not the way he learnt to bat, he time and again nearly got himself out to straightforward deliveries. Under the gun and against top class opposition such methods nearly always fall apart, and he surely would have known that. I doubt he would have tried to bat like that against Dale Steyn, and even Praveen troubled him numerous times throughout that series.

Given that such an artificial technique was unlikely to work against better bowlers than the ones he was up against - I rate Praveen but he needs to be doing what he does at least 10kph faster to be a genuine threat at Test level, and the other bowlers were just garbage - why was he trying it at all?

The great players when out of form have played themselves back into it by playing more watchfully than usual, eschewing risky shots and only punishing the really bad deliveries. Once they have built up the confidence and relocated their off stump they start playing all their shots again.

If he did adopt this technique in the knowledge that it would furnish only short-term benefits, far from being a masterstroke, it may end up having been the mistake that cost him his England career. Looking back to how he got out playing across straight ones that he never used to miss before in this series I am wondering whether it is not this new approach that has made him look so fallible to straight balls from slow bowlers.

Don't agree with that at all. He's an old fashioned swing bowler and has deserved his success in Test Cricket. He reminds me of Hoggard, someone who bowled a similar speed. He won't take a wicket every 30 balls, but he's a quality Test Match bowler.

 

[Jacknife]

It's one of the most well thought-out techniques in cricket. By getting forward and across he largely takes lbw out of the equation and it makes his decisions on what to play and what to leave very easy. By not driving through the off-side (always a good idea in England) he takes the slips out of the game too, and he's strong enough on his pads that he's very unlikely to just miss a straight one.

That's why he scored about a million runs in that series, despite not appearing to be in the best touch. If you're not nicking him out behind the wicket on the off-side and you're not threatening the stumps, you're probably not going to get him out. Dhoni was often forced to resort to bowling to a leg slip or bowling short or some similarly speculative plan. It's probably the best example I've seen of a batsman using a clever technique to score runs despite mediocre form.

Totally agree and to hear posters say that he was doing it because he so leg side orientated and it was completely planned is completely missing the point of why he does it and which is like you've explained and KP himself has on numerous occasions.

 

[hazsa19]

The double standards of some of the England fans on this forum is astonishing. And I say this as an England supporter. When Indian fans, BCCI officials, players like Ashwin, Gambhir, Kohli and Ishant, ex-players like Shastri - basically anyone even remotely connected to Indian cricket - make the sort of complacent comments that we've all heard since the recent England and Australia tours, to the effect that:

"It sucks, but we'll beat them at home and then everything will be alright",

they are widely mocked. Images of Saddam's propaganda minister are posted, threads are started and continue for pages and pages long after the comments have officially been denied, the names of crooks like Lalit Modi and the IPL are bandied about and used to muddy the waters and confuse what is a Test selection issue with something else altogether.

Yet even as they mock those Indians (sound like Tony Greig there), England's fans have been just as much in denial. There have been batting collapses in every match of this tour from the warm-up games till the third Test. Pietersen and Bell have not made a single contribution of note, even against part time bowlers. Yet rather than face up to the fact that drastic changes needed to be made to the middle order if England were to have any chance of succeeding, all we get is "we could easily have won 2-1" and other inanities.

No, mug, England could NOT have won 2-1, or in fact achieved any score other than 3-0 which fairly reflected the respective performances of the two sides. Why? Because England had incompetents batting in the crucial positions of 4, 5, and 6. Morgan is clearly not up to it, but he's the new boy so let's leave him out of it for now. The reality is that Pietersen and Bell are nowhere near as accomplished as they are made out to be on here, and this tour is the final proof, if any more were necessary. Yet despite the fact that it was pretty obvious as early as the end of the first Test that these clowns could not cope, management declined to change things around, and so England sleepwalked to a dismal and humiliating defeat that could have been avoided - given the quality of the bowling by Broad, Panesar, Anderson and Swann - if they had been brave enough to draft in batting reinforcements.

When you continue to rely on batsmen in the key positions of 4 and 5 who have proved quite conclusively that they are completely and utterly incapable of handling skilled spin bowling in anything other than their home conditions in an away tour when confronted with precisely that kind of bowling, then you have only yourself to blame for the whitewash.

HB is right, England never looked like chasing down 140. Despite this so-called England fans on here are still reacting as if merely suggesting that Pietersen's and Bell's places ought to be reviewed is an indicator of mental illness. That juxtaposition says a lot about England fans. I myself have been scathing about the Indian fans in the past, but I am now starting to reassess. The "If Zak had been fully fit" crowd are at least clinging on to hope - if only a faint and diminishing one. Misguided as they are, they are worthy of a certain respect if only because of that. The "how dare you suggest Bell/KP should be dropped, moron?" crowd on the other hand, are much worse. They are not living on hope, but stomping on it. The hope that England might some day fall out of love with posturing mediocrity and unjustified hype, and fall in love with sustained excellence.

And wtf is this garbage? How is the shocking Indian attitude of "it's okay because we'll beat them at home" remotely similar to identifying England's vulnerability to spin bowling as the crucial difference in this series?

 

[Your mama]

Pakistan have a strong core. They need to change a few things to become a complete hard nut.

An opener for mohammed hafeez. The pakistani tail and ofcourse the fast bowling stocks. If pakistan can sort them before they go to away series they will seriously gatecrash everything.

Loving the new discliplined pakistan. And by the way is it me or Younis khan adorable? Not just because he's a class player and best pakistani batsman but he always smiles whether he's winning or losing.