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***Official*** Pakistan and England in UAE

Who do you think will win?!


  • Total voters
    88

miscer

U19 Cricketer
im happy to see england lose and pakistan dish some much needed retribution in the name of asian cricket (intentionally or not). but anyways now I'd like to say that we can't let australia regain no. 1 spot either. I'd hate to see that smug smile back on the australians faces when it's only been a few years since its been wiped clean.
 

Woodster

International Captain
Hmm.

Short of recommending that the batsmen are tarred and feathered I can't how the gentlemen (& ladies) of the fourth estate can overreact. 'Twas all kinds of gash.
There's no doubt the batsman have massively disappointed in this series so far, the first innings in this Test was as good as it's got. But up to that point of the chase today we played good cricket, that's not good enough to win a Test match obviously, but a lot of what we did was good. The batsmen will be lambasted, and to a point I agree they should be, but it was extremely difficult against Ajmal and Rehman in those conditions, not 72 all-out difficult, but tough no doubt about it.

It's easy to say the batsmen didn't look like forming or experimenting with any kind of game plan but the likes of Bell, KP, Trott and Morgan perished without giving us a clue how they were going to approach this task. Therein lies a problem that they did all fall early, and each and everyone of them needs to look at how they can succeed against these bowlers.

Bopara anyone ? Surely he must get a go in the third Test.
 

nightprowler10

Global Moderator
I saw someone mention the '05 series when we ruined their post-Ashes celebration. It got me back into cricket then, maybe this series will do the same.
 

Woodster

International Captain
His last first class game was Aug 2011 Woodster
Yes I know and that would not make it easy for him at all, and while I don't agree in selection terms of the mantra "he can't do any worse" as true as it is, it may give him the opportunity to play on the sub-continental tracks ahead of the SL series, which we surely must be planning ahead to now.

If Panesar is going to remain in the side, which I presume he must do, then Bopara will give us a better bowling option than Trott. I appreciate he hasn't played first-class cricket for some time, the starting XI in Dubai had only had a couple of tour games to get them in tune with things, and some of them are still looking like they haven't played competitive cricket for some months.
 

Faisal1985

International Vice-Captain
One thing i would like to say in response to the comments that England batsmen made mistakes and should played this way or that...tbh good bowling is all about making the batsman actually make the mistake...and spinners in this series did exactly that...forced batsmen to make mistakes and stay in two minds whether to go front foot or defend...
 

FBU

International Debutant
Yes I know and that would not make it easy for him at all, and while I don't agree in selection terms of the mantra "he can't do any worse" as true as it is, it may give him the opportunity to play on the sub-continental tracks ahead of the SL series, which we surely must be planning ahead to now.

If Panesar is going to remain in the side, which I presume he must do, then Bopara will give us a better bowling option than Trott. I appreciate he hasn't played first-class cricket for some time, the starting XI in Dubai had only had a couple of tour games to get them in tune with things, and some of them are still looking like they haven't played competitive cricket for some months.
I don't think we are short of bowling options. Trott and KP weren't needed and I felt the fast bowlers didn't get enough overs, especially with the new ball. 4 overs each with each new ball was a waste.
 

Scaly piscine

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
There's no doubt the batsman have massively disappointed in this series so far, the first innings in this Test was as good as it's got. But up to that point of the chase today we played good cricket, that's not good enough to win a Test match obviously, but a lot of what we did was good. The batsmen will be lambasted, and to a point I agree they should be, but it was extremely difficult against Ajmal and Rehman in those conditions, not 72 all-out difficult, but tough no doubt about it.

It's easy to say the batsmen didn't look like forming or experimenting with any kind of game plan but the likes of Bell, KP, Trott and Morgan perished without giving us a clue how they were going to approach this task. Therein lies a problem that they did all fall early, and each and everyone of them needs to look at how they can succeed against these bowlers.

Bopara anyone ? Surely he must get a go in the third Test.
Piss off. He's abysmal. You don't fix anything by picking that sad sack. Call up all the bowlers and pick a team full of them with Prior and tell all the batsmen to **** off home.

And was it bollocks extremely difficult. They were pathetic. If I could take back all my exaggerations in my thousands of posts just to emphasise just how epically ****house England's batting was I would. There aren't enough words in my Scrabble dictionaries to describe these useless tossers. There aren't enough bleeped out words in Gordon Ramsay's TV career to fully ram home just what a complete sack of **** the batting has been in these two Tests, but they managed to cap it off with some even more 'special' today. Don't give them any excuses, they don't deserve them. They've got all the resources, backroom staff and so on and they turn up and play like they've never seen a ball spin a few degrees before. It's not even bouncing or going quickly. Disgraceful.
 

Woodster

International Captain
I don't think we are short of bowling options. Trott and KP weren't needed and I felt the fast bowlers didn't get enough overs, especially with the new ball. 4 overs each with each new ball was a waste.
No you're right, in this Test we weren't short of bowling options, I don't we've had too many issues at all with the bowling in this Test. I'm not saying they should definitely go with Bopara at this point, I've not thought enough about it, but it should be given careful consideration.
 

Woodster

International Captain
Piss off. He's abysmal. You don't fix anything by picking that sad sack. Call up all the bowlers and pick a team full of them with Prior and tell all the batsmen to **** off home.

And was it bollocks extremely difficult. They were pathetic. If I could take back all my exaggerations in my thousands of posts just to emphasise just how epically ****house England's batting was I would. There aren't enough words in my Scrabble dictionaries to describe these useless tossers. There aren't enough bleeped out words in Gordon Ramsay's TV career to fully ram home just what a complete sack of **** the batting has been in these two Tests, but they managed to cap it off with some even more 'special' today. Don't give them any excuses, they don't deserve them. They've got all the resources, backroom staff and so on and they turn up and play like they've never seen a ball spin a few degrees before. It's not even bouncing or going quickly. Disgraceful.
Clearly not everyone thinks he's abysmal and neither do I, I do think he needs to show more in his next opportunity, and he should be given a run if they go with him in the next Test. Don't get me wrong I don't think leaving him out was a bad decision in the first place, nor do I think his selection solves all our problems. but if you take a spare batsmen on tour and your batsmen are failing, surely the back-up man deserves a chance.

Regardless of what you say, in my opinion, it wasn't easy for any batsmen starting his innings on that pitch against that attack. Yes we didn't do ourselves justice and a few of the shots were deplorable, but it was against some excellent bowling and we don't have a given right to always score runs regardless of the quality of the opposition.

It was a performance way below the standard England are capable of, I'm not making excuses for them just trying to make sense of what happened. I'm presuming you didn't catch much of the action by suggesting the ball deviated a few degrees, not only did it go a bit more than that, it wasn't every ball which makes it worse. There were also other issues of not picking Ajmal, regardless of how many support staff you have, the acid test is in the middle and we failed it today and in the first Test.
 

Woodster

International Captain
Ajmal didn't do that much in your last innings. It was Abdul Rahman who was bloody good.
Yes I didn't mean they failed the Ajmal test today, just the general batting one. Though we're still not picking Ajmal and wouldn't say we played him well today at all, as his figures of 15-7-22-3 would suggest. Absolutely struggled with Rehman aswell, he was outstanding.
 

Jacknife

International Captain
The big difference was that 4, 5 and 6 have contributed **** all for us, that's made a huge difference in the match imo, Cook, Trott and even Strauss to some extent contributed but not a thing from the middle order. We know from history if you got nothing from your middle order your more than likely to come up short.

The bowlers did a wonderful job, every one of them this test, couldn't have asked for much more. Jimmy & particularly Broad were very good and so were the spinners, they did enough for England to win this match and all that was needed was one decent partnership or contributions all the way down.

To suggest the ball was hardly deviating is hilarious, the ball particularly this final day, I thought started to spit off the deck a lot more, I remember a few to Strauss inparticular that jumped and hit him in the body out of nowhere. More than that though it was the ones that weren't turning that caused the problems, especially after the batsmen had watched the previous deliveries turn a mile.
The big issue for me was that they went out in the 4th innings with the wrong game plan and they let the pressure build up, there was no purpose or idea how they were going to get the runs, they thought they could almost get them by batting time, which is alright in theory but totally wrong for this pitch because you were always eventually going to get one you couldn't keep out.

Anyway well done Pakistan, I thought we had this one but your lot wanted it more, time to pull your socks up England batsman and stop making ***** of yourselves.
 
Last edited:

amanuensis

U19 12th Man
The big difference was that 4, 5 and 6 have contributed **** all for us, that's made a huge difference in the match imo, Cook, Trott and even Strauss to some extent contributed but not a thing from the middle order. We know from history if you got nothing from your middle order your more than likely to come up short.

The bowlers did a wonderful job, every one of them this test, couldn't have asked for much more. Jimmy & particularly Broad were very good and so were the spinners, they did enough for England to win this match and all that was needed was one decent partnership or contributions all the way down.

To suggest the ball was hardly deviating is hilarious, the ball particularly this final day, I thought started to spit off the deck a lot more, I remember a few to Strauss inparticular that jumped and hit him in the body out of nowhere. More than that though it was the ones that weren't turning that caused the problems, especially after the batsmen had watched the previous deliveries turn a mile.
The big issue for me was that they went out in the 4th innings with the wrong game plan and they let the pressure build up, there was no purpose or idea how they were going to get the runs, they thought they could almost get them by batting time, which is alright in theory but totally wrong for this pitch because you were always eventually going to get one you couldn't keep out.

Anyway well done Pakistan, I thought we had this one but your lot wanted it more, time to pull your socks up England batsman and stop making ***** of yourselves.
Bell arguably made as much of a contribution in the first innings as Strauss did in the second.
 

Jacknife

International Captain
Bell arguably made as much of a contribution in the first innings as Strauss did in the second.
Arguably yes but Strauss scored 30 odd out of 70 odd we made, when we only needed 145, just needed someone to stick with him, tbf didn't even remember Bell's few runs
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
A few suggested changes for England, adopting their standard approach to selections in a crisis.

Out: Cook, Trott, Pietesen, Bell, Prior, Swann.

In: Gooch, Gower, Emburey, Cowdrey (RIP), Stewart, Hick.
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
im happy to see england lose and pakistan dish some much needed retribution in the name of asian cricket (intentionally or not). but anyways now I'd like to say that we can't let australia regain no. 1 spot either. I'd hate to see that smug smile back on the australians faces when it's only been a few years since its been wiped clean.
It's the natural order of things mate. You'd as we'll try to the back the tide.
 

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