Prince EWS
Global Moderator
The thing is, Azhar Ali is a proper opener. Circumstances just conspired against them to mean that the first decent Test opener they'd produced in forever ended up batting three for them.
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**Official** Pakistan and England in the UAE 2015/16
- Thread starter broadyfan94
- Start date
Howe_zat
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This is the first match where he's supposed to do it in both innings. The first time Pakistan played Hafeez and Iran Farhat, then realised their mistake halfway through the match. The other two times it was Hafeez and Shehzad in the first innings.
flibbertyjibber
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Great opener Moeen is.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
*sigh* If only the think tank and all these analysts thought like you
Azhar experiment leaves confusion | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo
What I find troubling is they are already writing him off after 1 failure.
Howe_zat
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Back to the drawing board innit
I'd have loved to have seen him pull a Dilshan and start flailing away at the top of the order but it's safe to say the experiment will end now
Daemon
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Looks like Malik might stay at 3 when they tour then..
flibbertyjibber
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Not helped his bowling either as he has bowled pies all series. Doesn't have other suit to fall back on and pressure is telling in both forms. Tour to forget as far as he is concerned.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
Gotta feel for Moeen though. He was never an opener but forced to open because they wanted to play an extra spinner and all rounder and now his failure might cost him his place.
Misbah facepalming at that Malik long hop
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Yeah I was really worried that opening the batting would confuse him as to what he was meant to be working on, and I said so here. It's hard to say whether that's happened or he's just been found out a bit -- probably a bit of both -- but it definitely hasn't worked out for him. I'm a fan of him as a potentially decent Test bowler but I'm not sure I'd actually pick him against South Africa at all; it'd probably depend on how the second innings bowling effort went here really.
flibbertyjibber
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Na, can't see Moeen losing his place to Rashid for SA unless Rashid wins the match in the 2nd innings and even then I think Moeen has enough in the bank to retain his place for now. He will drop down the order to 7 with Bairstow at 6 (presuming Stokes is unfit) with the 4 quicks to follow.
Howe_zat
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Nah his place was always going to depend on his bowling. They will pick between Rashid and Moeen as the one spinner in SA
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Yeah indeed but you can't be sure opening hasn't affected his bowling. It won't have had a big impact on his match workload or anything like that because he hasn't actually made any runs, but it's probably changed the split of how long he spends working on each discipline outside the actual games.
Black_Warrior
Cricketer Of The Year
Yeah but now given Rashid's batting in the last test....
flibbertyjibber
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WTF are they doing?
Playing shots like it a T20. Braindead. Then again they are both from Warwickshire.
Playing shots like it a T20. Braindead. Then again they are both from Warwickshire.
Howe_zat
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yeah fair point
Prince EWS
Global Moderator
Moeen batted really well when he was at eight too though. You wouldn't pick Rashid ahead of Moeen because he batted better on this tour; that'd be silly. Both have shown they can make serious contributions at eight which gives them a leg up over Riley, Kerrigan, Batty etc which means it comes down purely to bowling between them. I think you could make a case to suggest Moeen might've bowled a bit better if he wasn't opening the batting but it's very speculative which is why him opening has been such an annoying experiment.