Well, having finally managed to wake-up in time and not have to leave before the end on the same day, I have watched my first full day this series.
And an interesting one at that. Trescothick receives his customary luck, Vaughan puts away the rubbish offered to him by Rehman and Haque jnr.
Then Mahmud tries something (I think - we don't know - this may just have been poor bowling and poor batting) to Trescothick that is hardly ever tried - when he's flying along, bowl way outside his off-stump. He can never resist a drive for long, and with his perminant lack of foot-movement one's bound to go in the air before long at all. All you've got to do then is get someone there to catch it, and hope they do. At the second attempt, Rehman did.
Maybe, as I say, I'm blowing this out of all proportion and it was just poor bowling and poor batting, but if it was thought-out I commend Khaled very much.
On his thought, that is, not the bowling - bowling two feet outside off isn't exactly difficult, even I could do that. Do not get the idea for a minute that I think it was good bowling, just clever to this batsman.
And after this pandemonium of Butcher somehow contriving to fail for the 3rd innings in a row against not-exactly-difficult bowling, Vaughan playing a now-customary nick to an fullish away-swinger and Thorpe making an inexplicable mistake (I never, in my life, thought I'd see him trying to drive his 2nd ball off the back-foot) it needed another rescue mission.
And again Mr. Clarke came-up trumps. A tentative moment or two, especially against the might of Alok Kapali, but once again he has allayed my fears that he is too aggressive for Test-cricket - he is clearly perfectly capable of assessing a situation and, more importantly, playing to that assessment.
Nasser did OK, too, but how he escaped 2 chances in 4 runs... one straightforward-ish return-catch and one easy slip chance that was ignored...
Well, he can count his blessings and he'd better make them count, I can tell you.
I really hope Clarke makes at least 66 and gets his average for his first series up to 40.
Anyone else notice that this is the first time Vaughan has made a half-century and been dismissed before reaching a one-fifty for 16 Tests?
Anyway, hope Read makes some runs tomorrow (unless Nasser and Rikki bat all the rest of the innings).
(Fingers crossed)
