***Official*** England in Pakistan

[Barney Rubble]

Two sixes so far from this Harmison over from Shoaib!

And then he's caught by Flintoff. Pakistan all out 462, that's about par on this pitch.

 

[Jono]

Giles test average creeping up towards 40 now, at the sensational rate of 2.63 wickets per test.

Interestingly, the only players ever to play more than 50 tests with a bowling average of more than 40 are Mark Waugh, Carl Hooper, Sachin Tendulkar and Viv Richards.

Sensational bowling company for Giles to be joining.

edit: whoops, I was looking at 100+ tests. Oh well, I still can't find a single specialist bowler who's played over 50 tests with a 40+ average.

Unfortunately he's scalped a couple of late wickets. Otherwise that 40 was possible

 

[Barney Rubble]

Right, this is probably a curse coming from me, but Strauss to score a hundred this innings, and Pietersen to get runs, too.

 

[Nate]

Go Pakistan! Bowl`m out for `round 300 I say.

 

[andyc]

Is Udal as bad as his current test stats (1 wicket at 154, SR of 252) suggest?

 

[SquidAU]

C'mon Pakistan!

Naved for a 5 fer and Shoaib to rip more stumps out of the ground!

 

[andyc]

England to make about 350, I daresay

 

[Unattainableguy]

Go Pakistan! Bowl`m out for `round 300 I say.

I want to see England being forced to follow on, I don't know if that's gonna happen though. But I want them to bowl England out around 250.

 

[aussie]

the poms have to put their head down and bat, they should be looking to get as close as possible to Pakistan's score, but that easier said than done because it definately wont be easy...

 

[Barney Rubble]

Is Udal as bad as his current test stats (1 wicket at 154, SR of 252) suggest?

Ermm.....almost.

 

[wahindiawah]

I think ppl shouldn't start accusing umpires of cheating without thinking, especial coz the umpires happen to be from a neutral country and have no reason to take bias decision.

However i must said that the way Inzi,Afridi and Yousuf got out was very tragic.How on earth can a batsmen be given run out when the player was only protecting himself?? This too from a senior umpire!! SHOCKING!

This match will probably end up as a draw but might be remembered for very poor umpiring.

 

[marc71178]

how come you have no radio or tv access marco?

Well for a start Sky is extremely expensive and therefore not worth it for the amount of time I get to spend at home.

And I wasn't at home so didn't have a radio to listen to it.

 

[marc71178]

Another great piece of cheating by the umpire.Does it always have to happen with Pakistan only?

There's none so blind as those that cannot see.

You'll overlook the (by reports on here dodgy) earlier decisions that went in Pakistan's favour, as well as some in the previous game.

 

[marc71178]

Nahh, I think most of them are now gonna be thinking about whitewashing Pakistan in ODIs now( or atleast winning the series), and in my opinion, that's not going to happen as well.

Which would be all well and good if English fans had made such big predictions pre-series.

 

[luckyeddie]

There's none so blind as those that cannot see.

You'll overlook the (by reports on here dodgy) earlier decisions that went in Pakistan's favour, as well as some in the previous game.

Not only that, the Inzy decision was given by the television umpire Nadeem Ghauri, who happens to be from Lahore.

Now I appreciate that could be Lahore, Isle of Wight, but somehow I doubt it.

 

[wahindiawah]

Bell & Trescothick both should be banned for 5 ODIs or 2 Tests each just happened as in the case of Rashid Latif..

Rashid got banned because the Bangladeshis complained to the Refree about the catch, Bell can get banned if Pakistan do complain to match refree (mahanama) about it, but Pakistan has taken a wise decision of not complaining it to the Match refree.

If you ask me, i think its very much possible that both Rashid Lateef and Bell didn't knew that the catch wasn't legitimate whenever they took it.I supported Rashid Lateef at that time and thought he was unfortunate to have ended up serving a test ban, i just hope same doesn't happen to Bell.

 

[wahindiawah]

I want to see England being forced to follow on, I don't know if that's gonna happen though. But I want them to bowl England out around 250.

Not possible on this wicket, i don't expect anything less than 350 from England in first innings.

But then Pak has Almighty Rana Naveed ..so anything can happen

 

[wahindiawah]

Not only that, the Inzy decision was given by the television umpire Nadeem Ghauri, who happens to be from Lahore.

.

I'm not sure what Nadeem Ghauri was suppose to do? he was basically asked the question as to whether Inzi was out of crease or not by looking at replay and he gave the simple answer.

The incident should in the first place shouldn't have been referred to the third umpire by the Darrel Hair, the fact that he reffered it to the third umpires shows that he was unaware that a batsman cannot be run out when taking evasive action from a throw if he has not left his crease

 

[wahindiawah]

England off to good start as ball is not doing much on placid wkt.

Any chance of England win in this match?? I guess for that they will have to make like 600-625 score in first innings.

 

[luckyeddie]

I'm not sure what Nadeem Ghauri was suppose to do? he was basically asked the question as to whether Inzi was out of crease or not by looking at replay and he gave the simple answer.

The incident should in the first place shouldn't have been referred to the third umpire by the Darrel Hair, the fact that he reffered it to the third umpires shows that he was unaware that a batsman cannot be run out when taking evasive action from a throw if he has not left his crease

I don't know whether the question was "Is Inzy out of his crease?" or "Is Inzy out?", and I'm rather surprised that you feel that you do.

Either way, there are any numbers of contributing factors that go towards making a decision - were the on-field umpires sure that Inzy was taking evasive action, was Inzy actually in his ground immediately BEFORE he started to take evasive action (if he wasn't, the whole 'evasive action' point goes out of the window) and only then would the question be likely to be asked as to whether the foot was grounded.

So the on-field umpires quite rightly referred it - but WHY it was referred, you'll just have to wait until you are told. Either way, the wrong decision was made.