Except the possibility that Patel might've been effective in a second innings if this wicket becomes a turner is negated by the fact that in the first innings he wouldn't have gotten much help at all, and England would've possibly scored more, thus making his job harder in the potential second innings we're talking about. But we're getting into a whole lot of ifs and buts and whatnot but I maintain that two spinners on this pitch would've been about as effective as trying to stop a stampede of elephants by waving a twig at them.At this stage you'd be perfectly right, unless the pressure of the spinners had built up to a boiling point and caused an English Meltdown, I would think they would be batting still till the first session. I do think though come the second innings, we will be missing Patel.
Wasim Akram would be my guess.That's true, but neither here nor there really. Actually I remember once hearing that a very highly rated bowler had an unusually high number of tailenders in his wicket tally, but I can't remember who. McGrath maybe?
Can't really blame Bell too much today TBH.Bell. Three more chances to get a score.
Slightly harsh on Sidebottom. He's not an out and out rabbit, but he's obviously no Brett Lee. Can stick around and grind out a few runs from time to time.Sidebottom and MSP are more of the "traditional" tail-end types.
I'm not counting someone like Stuart Broad as a "tailender".
Played an awful shot & got nowhere near it. Probably wouldn't have mattered as the ball was that good, but he was in no position to play it anyway.Can't really blame Bell too much today TBH.
Oh, true, but it's an occupational hazard. If you're going to pick opening-batsmen you've got to forgive them when they get balls like that. Don Bradman or George Headley would've been highly unlikely to have kept that out.That may be but openers should be prepared for dangerous balls, and he does need at least one score this series.