*Official* Pakistan tour of Ireland, England and Scotland 2018

[Daemon]

Slips are still standing a bit too far back for Thompson

 

[weldone]

Field placement can be more water-tight methinks

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Seeing Murtagh bowl is sad because he could have made his debut ten years ago when England were flirting with duds like Mahmood, Kirtley, Caddick etc

You should start flirting.

Caddick was a beast of a bowler.

 

[Uppercut]

This has been mentioned numerous times (including by myself), but to play devil's advocate I can imagine some reasons touring teams might disagree.

Sometimes teams lose or do very poorly in "the ****** three-day warm-ups they do when they tour England"... and while losing a tour game doesn't really matter, losing a Test (and by extension an entire "Test series") is a big deal, especially rankings-wise. Secondly I think they'd feel compelled to pick their best eleven, rather than whatever eleven they wanted to give experience to over two short games or whatever they were intending, and I think they'd probably dislike this too.

These aren't compelling reasons not to do this IMO, but they're not things I've really seen others bring up online, and I'm sure they're brought up in cricket board meetings of other teams.

Yeah, I'd be quite surprised if these arguments carried the day though. Any sports team I've been a part of would relentlessly abuse anyone who made this kind of a case. It's basically "we won't play you because we're scared to lose".

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Imam is not a nepotistic selection. The real nepotistic selections are Azhar and Shafiq who have now become 'senior' players and take their place in the team for granted. Same could be said about Sarfraz

It's official, you know nothing about cricket.

Stop embarrassing yourself dude.

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah, I'd be quite surprised if these arguments carried the day though. Any sports team I've been a part of would relentlessly abuse anyone who made this kind of a case. It's basically "we won't play you because we're scared to lose".

Yeah but they wouldn't be the official reasons. They'd be the internal reasons and then they'd make up bull**** excuses. This would be far from new to cricket.

 

[weldone]

Nepotism in the sense because Sarfraz says that Azhar and Asad are like his 'brothers' and he would play them and himself no matter how terribly they perform

Everyone in the Indian team called Ganguly as 'dada' (means 'big brother' in Bengali). He must be everyone's brother then.

 

[Niall]

It's official, you know nothing about cricket.

Stop embarrassing yourself dude.

Shafiq is essentially a discount Ian Bell. I don't blame Pakistanis for getting annoyed with him for his lack of consistency but ultimately for now there are no other alternatives. Azhar has been there most conistent batsman for the last few years and you will struggle to find a Pakistan successful test series where he did not contribute, but he is out of nick atm. I would not bin him as he has more than enough credit in the bank, but its annoying for Pakistanis that this slump coincides with such a big series with England.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah but they wouldn't be the official reasons. They'd be the internal reasons and then they'd make up bull**** excuses. This would be far from new to cricket.

We'd be the southpaw brawlers of test cricket, can't get anyone to fight us because a loss is plausible and would look bad on their records.

I'm obviously totally biased, but it's not a choice I could understand. Bumming around Somerset when you could visit a beautiful capital city in a new country, play a real game and get your match fee. Maybe that's just me though.

 

[Jarquis]

We'd be the southpaw brawlers of test cricket, can't get anyone to fight us because a loss is plausible and would look bad on their records.

I'm obviously totally biased, but it's not a choice I could understand. Bumming around Somerset when you could visit a beautiful capital city in a new country, play a real game and get your match fee. Maybe that's just me though.

Of all the counties you could have picked.....

 

[Prince EWS]

Shafiq is essentially a discount Ian Bell. I don't blame Pakistanis for getting annoyed with him for his lack of consistency but ultimately for now there are no other alternatives. Azhar has been there most conistent batsman for the last few years and you will struggle to find a Pakistan successful test series where he did not contribute, but he is out of nick atm. I would not bin him as he has more than enough credit in the bank, but its annoying for Pakistanis that this slump coincides with such a big series with England.

Azhar is quite arguably the best opener in the world, but it's apparently 'nepotism' that he's selected. Even ignoring the fact that he totally butchered the actual definition of the word nepotism, that's a disgraceful post.

But even ignoring that, responding a post bitching about the fact that a **** with a FC average of 27 is making his debut with a whinge post about Shafiq is also ****ing dire. Shafiq has his problems but a give me a discount Ian Bell over a discount discount discount Umar Akmal any day.

 

[Daemon]

Probably Murtagh's last over here. Feel like the game will start to slip away once he's done

oh wait it's lunch, awesome timing

 

[Firebreaker]

See the recent record of Azhar, Asad and Sarfraz before talking about my knowledge of cricket and how many of those innings were match winning

 

[S.Kennedy]

Is that Henry VIII at first slip?

 

[Firebreaker]

This one session has been more interesting than the whole IPL

 

[Uppercut]

Probably Murtagh's last over here. Feel like the game will start to slip away once he's done

oh wait it's lunch, awesome timing

At least we've slowed them down quite well, might turn out to be crucial if it rains this afternoon.

 

[Niall]

Azhar is quite arguably the best opener in the world, but it's apparently 'nepotism' that he's selected. Even ignoring the fact that he totally butchered the actual definition of the word nepotism, that's a disgraceful post.

But even ignoring that, responding a post bitching about the fact that a **** with a FC average of 27 is making his debut with a whinge post about Shafiq is also ****ing dire. Shafiq has his problems but a give me a discount Ian Bell over a discount discount discount Umar Akmal any day.

Oh yeah agree on all that, its not nepotism whatsoever, that would be the lad who is opening with Azhar.

There was an other blatant example last year with some horrid opener whose father was a very important person in Pakistan whose name escapes me.

 

[Prince EWS]

See the recent record of Azhar, Asad and Sarfraz before talking about my knowledge of cricket and how many of those innings were match winning

They have the same amount of match winning innings as any other player in Test cricket: 0. Such things are a myth. You can't win a match with an innings; you need to take wickets too, not to mention avoid finishing 3* with a collapse at the other end.

This is just a lame attempt to get other people to dig through their careers innings by innings because you can't be bothered to do so yourself, and then hold them to a standard you wouldn't hold any other player, or to a standard you've conveniently invented for this thread especially for them to fail.

How many "match winning innings" has ****ing Imam played in domestic FC cricket for his average well short of Asad and Shafiq's Test stats, hmm? Honestly so sick of this **** where every misinformed or biased gut-feel opinion can be defended by the same generic one-liners that force other people to do the work, only for more generic one-liners to follow in response to it.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

See the recent record of Azhar, Asad and Sarfraz before talking about my knowledge of cricket and how many of those innings were match winning

There's a big difference between 'nepotism' and 'cronyism'

Your post was such an embarrassment.

A big embarrassment

 

[ajdude]

They have the same amount of match winning innings as any other player in Test cricket: 0. Such things are a myth. You can't win a match with an innings; you need to take wickets too, not to mention avoid finishing 3* with a collapse at the other end.

This is just a lame attempt to get other people to dig through their careers innings by innings because you can't be bothered to do so yourself, and then hold them to a standard you wouldn't hold any other player, or to a standard you've conveniently invented for this thread especially for them to fail.

How many "match winning innings" has ****ing Imam played in domestic FC cricket for his average of 27, hmm? Honestly so sick of this **** where every misinformed or biased gut-feel opinion can be defended by the same generic one-liners that force other people to do the work, only for more generic one-liners to follow in response to it.

imam averages 35 in FC cricket, only 4 tons though and definitely nepotism nonetheless