Hugely disappointing to crumble as we did but we need to take our medicine on this.
As others have said, it appears to me that whilst England are bolder and look to put pressure back on the opposition, there’s an inflexibility to what the do. They appear to do their homework and have “a plan”- the sweep shot being this tours obvious starting point- but then the moment Pakistan introduced new players into the team it was as if we were rabbits in headlights and we haven’t got a set way to play this guy (ie Sajid). That to me shows we might be over coaching and that we need to consider how we create an onus to adapt.
I completely understand what Brendan Mccullum has tried to do in the mental side - he’s had to give players the feeling of no consequence if they get out simply because they don’t execute a shot well- however players should have some accountability as his era goes on. 2 years in now I’d expect us to begin to just smooth the edges of our approach, which by and large should continue to be, but just refined to include some game management flexibility that respects the conditions, challenge of particular bowlers, and the position in the match.
The amount of 100s just given away from Crawley, Duckett, Smith to name but a few after they’ve done the hard work and got well ahead of the scoreboard just staggers me. They need to learn from Joe Root in that regard- 0.5 runs a ball is perfectly acceptable when you’ve got the opposition under the cosh at 5 or 6 an over until that point.
This isn’t criticising them as they both played brilliantly, but when you look at Smith and Atkinson in the first innings- they’d got Pakistan reeling mentally- heads were going having got England 110/6 and then seeing us knock out a 100 partnership. With so much time in the game, we didn’t need to give Pakistan anything to hang on to yet we gave some soft wickets away there and IIRC Smith at an awful time just before Tea. These are moments where England need to understand their position in the game.
A bit of Aussie ruthlessness I guess!
Anyway all the England chat aside, a huge congratulations to Pakistan and Jason Gillespie as they had to take some real criticism after that first test. They have dug in, come out fighting and found England out. A much needed series win and perhaps this can ignite test cricket over there again.