***Official*** Pakistan in England

[Fusion]

Well even with that moronic run out, gotta give credit to Straus. Great 100. A good Captain's innings.

 

[howardj]

His partner was left 'holding the baby'.

 

[howardj]

Jones needs runs here.

Read would be death-riding him.

 

[Scaly piscine]

300 up, get your finger out Geraint.

 

[chipmonk]

If Inzi really practiced ???? the possibilities ...

 

[Scaly piscine]

Another worthless innings so far from Geraint. Should aim for at least 50 off the last 10 overs tonight.

 

[Fusion]

Akmal has had a very poor game behind the stumps. A world class keeper should have taken that.

 

[Fusion]

Jones gone. If I were England, I'd take slogs in the last 3 overs and then put Pakistan in to bat from the start tom. They'd have the whole day to get them out on a last day pitch.

 

[TT Boy]

Good knock Geraint, wasted the best part of sixty balls doing nothing.

 

[Fusion]

Straus departs after a fine knock. Danish picking up some late wickets for his marathon work.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Completely aimless, wasteful negative rubbish from England this session. Presumably they're now going to spend half an hour tomorrow pottering about as well with Hoggard blocking away nearly as much as Geraint.

 

[SirBloody Idiot]

Bucknor at his umpiring best for this test?

 

[TT Boy]

Have to agree with you Scaly, the last session was utterly banal and pointless. Neither one thing or the other, Strauss was solely preoccupied about scoring a ton than accelerating the run rate, Bell and Jones did nothing more than waste time and indicate are real lack of intent. If we have any desire to win this test match, a declaration overnight has to occur but then again, Pakistan could forcibly chase such a total.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Has to be an overnight declaration. The lead is enough to give the bowlers something to work with, and it's not as though Hoggard and Harmison are totally useless. To continue batting tomorrow and push the lead up to 350+ would be utterly pointless and negative.

 

[Scaly piscine]

If England were gonna declare overnight why did Hoggard come out to bat?

Mind arguing logic with England is futile, because they're playing a lot of stupid cricket frankly. So they probably will declare overnight, take a few wickets, then someone will get in and score at a decent rate and then England will shove all the fielders back and hope for a draw.

 

[howardj]

International teams are instinctively conservative in these situations.

They always bat on way too long, as a general rule.

And then opposition never really go for the runs anyway.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Well England have set two big targets over the past year and had the opposition at least threaten to get them for a while, I'd be surprised if the same doesn't happen tomorrow - get the top 3 out then we're into Pakistan's best bats, then after that there's some very attacking players, so it would take England to bat on for ages or for Pakistan to be reduced to something like 100-7 for there not be a bit of a wobble from Strauss.

 

[marc71178]

True, but England wouldn't have gotten a decent crack at the Pakistani top order that night.

That's irrelevant.

As for the fact that they got the 3rd wicket an over or so from the end (an over that more than likely wouldn't have happened if they'd messed around any longer) - well that doesn't matter because some people like to moan regardless.

 

[marc71178]

Anyway could do with a KP special to help a declaration come earlier... possibly.

So now you want an early declaration, yet if they hadn't declared in the first innings then such an early declaration wouldn't have had a hope of happening?

 

[Scaly piscine]

So now you want an early declaration, yet if they hadn't declared in the first innings then such an early declaration wouldn't have had a hope of happening?

?

If they'd had a go at the bowling at the end of the last innings instead of just declaring and they'd have come off then they could have declared earlier in the second innings when it's harder to score and there's now pressure and risk attached.