**Official** Pakistan and England in the UAE 2015/16

[harsh.ag]

Bob Willis chatting absolute ****e in the Verdict.

This is winnable for England. Extremely ****ing unlikely, but still winnable. I completely disagree with his assertion that England have clearly set their stall out to bat for a draw. Moeen isn't secure in the team and his place in under question. Natural for him to be careful. Bell is on the decline and in rotten form. Natural for him to bat a bit slowly and tugidly. Cook's scoring rate throughout his innings has been fine. Root, if he's in form will score fine, and the players to come are dashers. When you're up against 520, you need to get through day 3 without losing many wickets. England have done that. If they can get to avoiding the follow on without losing wickets and Cook and Root play themselves back in, that's when you step on the accelerator.

Come the end of day 4, England would want to be around parity/slightly ahead. Declare overnight, pray the pitch deteriorates a wee bit, and see what Pakistan do on day 5. The answer is probably "easily bat their way to a draw" but strange things can happen to a batting lineup when they're against good bowlers and in a position where they cannot win the game.

Agreed, but they should definitely look to try and score 300 runs today in 75 overs. Very difficult ask though.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Cook dropped by Sarf.

Poor Wahab

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Can't drop chances on this pitch.

 

[Howe_zat]

When people bang on about the pitch taking bowlers out of the game, they ought to remember that nothing leads to bowlers being ****ed over like dropped catches.

It's still a road but almost everyone who's made runs on it so far has been dropped at least once

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Agree Howe but you have to say that was by far the hardest of all the chances that have gone down. The rest were simple chances in comparison to that one.

 

[Howe_zat]

I guess my point is that when we get a match like this it's due to a combination of conditions, patient batting, and drops. It's still possible to have a good match on a road.

People do the same thing when teams get bowled out for 80 as well tbf

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Well Cardiff was flat and boring and we saw a result this summer. This has been flatter though, the fact there is hardly any turn either on day 4 makes it depressing.

When you think about it we should have had 7 wickets on day 1 which would have been a good effort and had we taken the chances we may well have bowled Pakistan out on day 1.

 

[Cabinet96]

Root using New Balance looks weird.

 

[Niall]

Sarfraz does love a good drop.

Babar is keeping it tight, but doesn't look like taking wickets whatsoever.

 

[Cabinet96]

For all the talk about how Cook makes huge scores, two double tons out of 28 centuries isn't exactly a lot. Hasn't got one for over 2 years. Needs to go big.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Well Cardiff was flat and boring and we saw a result this summer. This has been flatter though, the fact there is hardly any turn either on day 4 makes it depressing.

When you think about it we should have had 7 wickets on day 1 which would have been a good effort and had we taken the chances we may well have bowled Pakistan out on day 1.

Plus the pitch is taking out all bounce and pace from the delivery, almost like sapping all the energy the bowler puts in. Even without the turn, a fair bit of bounce would have helped.

 

[Howe_zat]

The seam bowling has actually been heaps good this morning. A lot of beating the bat

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Plus the pitch is taking out all bounce and pace from the delivery, almost like sapping all the energy the bowler puts in. Even without the turn, a fair bit of bounce would have helped.

Yeah when a bowler like Wahab Riaz is getting through to the keeper at ankle height nearly every ball it shows how bad it is. Not like he wasn't putting the effort in. He has bowled very well but the pitch has won.

 

[Howe_zat]

Blokes practising on literal concrete

 

[Howe_zat]

Bit of an escape there

 

[Cabinet96]

Poor seamers.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

He was almost shaking the bowlers hand though he was that far down. Silly review.

 

[Black_Warrior]

A lot of people online and in the commentary are comparing with the Australia and New Zealand test matches last year. But as much as the pitch here is much flatter, another point to note is the fact that Cook and Root are able to match the patience game played by YK, Azhar, Misbah and Shafiq in these conditions in a way that the likes of Warner, Smith, Maxwell, Clarke were unable to. There were moments in the game when Australia looked like having a partnership only to throw it away. This is something that Cook is unlikely to do.

 

[Black_Warrior]

He was almost shaking the bowlers hand though he was that far down. Silly review.

To be honest that was the first instance of a real lbw appeal as a result of the ball moving.. If I were Misbah, I would have reviewed just to offer some encouragement to my bowlers.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

To be honest that was the first instance of a real lbw appeal as a result of the ball moving.. If I were Misbah, I would have reviewed just to offer some encouragement to my bowlers.

True, they might wait another 40 overs for a realistic chance to use it anyway.