I certainly thought the Crawley and Pope dismissals were very mediocre when I watched the back end of the first hour and a little bit on. I was on my way to work by the time others were in but not surprised Stokes perished the way he did. I'm surprised that the innovative batting selections don't come into force for Asia. Surely Keaton Jennings is a good horses for courses pick?
Although a couple of beauties from Noman there to show there's still plenty of life.
Batting horse for course selections always seems to carry a more dubious stigma than bowling equivelants for some reason and this regime put a lot of emphasis on showing relentless confidence in the players that are invested in.
Yeah but you always expect those and they played them well - played the line, didn't push the hands, covered the stumps. You just accept that those will happen and move on.
That innings in India (during which it should be noted he was dropped badly at least once) looks more and more a freak outlier by the day
It looked like one at the time. Flukey as hell iirc.
I think to succeed long-term Pakistan need to prepare something closer to their more traditional wickets and go with a two-pace, two-spin combination depending on what allrounders are available. But they're clearly desperate for a win and the ultra-flat pitches like in the first test clearly do them no good at all, especially against a team as attacking as England.
He doesn't have much of a defence period, but that defence is even more minimal against the spinners.
Cricinfo did some digging up on this it's actually nowhere close.
www.espncricinfo.com
More I think . Smith looks alright. Bashir and Rehan will give four balls and Leach doesn't respond well to being attacked. England's batting in the first session was rubbish.
That'll be four ball overs. It's equivalent to 76.4 six ball overs. Though I don't think there's a longer instance for opening bowlers, and maybe not even one that comes close.Cricinfo did some digging up on this it's actually nowhere close.
The record for most overs unchanged for opening bowlers is 115 overs !
Joey Palmer and Edwin Evans bowled 115 overs unchanged for Australia vs England in 1882 .
AUS vs ENG Cricket Scorecard, 2nd Test at Sydney, February 17 - 21, 1882
Get cricket scorecard of 2nd Test, AUS vs ENG, England tour of Australia 1881/82 at Sydney Cricket Ground dated February 17 - 21, 1882.
Like I said he talks it more than he walks it, I prefer the keepers that are less talk and more action, the Jack Russell types rather than the Paul Nixon types
I suspect Pope at least currently just has that Marvan Atapattu thing going on. The guy who played 90 tests, scored six double centuries (albeit two against Zimbabwe), and managed to keep his average to 39.02. Of players with six or more, the next lowest average is Sehwag at 49.34.