***Official*** Pakistan in West Indies 2017

[fishyguy]

So stupid to bowl first. Don't they realize that they won't win if they bat last no matter how well they play first 4 days. Look what happened to pak last game and Windies 1st game. So Stupid!

 

[auditor]

9am Welcome back to ESPNcricinfo's live coverage of the series-deciding Test in Dominica. This could be a big day. Azhar Ali is moving towards his 14th Test hundred. Younis Khan is unbeaten on 10. Will #MisYou bat together and set Pakistan up for perfect finish: a first-ever Test series win in the Caribbean? There is a rain threat around as well. So, plenty of look forward to.

 

[Burner]

Everyone on the tuk-tuk express

 

[vcs]

Yeah, there's slow and there's glacial. This is the latter.

 

[Burner]

Misbah has scored 1 off 51 balls. Making the most of his last match.

 

[Burner]

Ramiz Raja has some personals issues with Azhar Ali or he's the biggest hater of attritional cricket.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Misbah WAFG.

 

[Howe_zat]

Looking forward to Misbah hitting a bunch of random sixes in this innings

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

And he's out. Azhar

 

[Burner]

This strategy of Pakistan's to play at below 2.5 NRR might be a little flowed when they are ending up with 350 after all the grafting.

 

[srbhkshk]

Azhar has to take some of the blame here, it's all fine to play slow in the first session - but you can't keep plodding on forever, as a well set batsmen you must take responsibility to actually get the score somewhere. It doesn't help that the only dynamic batsman they have is Sarfraz and he generally has to fight along with the tail.

 

[Firebreaker]

This Pakistan team is worst to watch even worst than WI and SL combined

 

[Black_Warrior]

Ramiz Raja has some personals issues with Azhar Ali or he's the biggest hater of attritional cricket.

Not just Azhar...he pretty much hates this team and Misbah.

Guy claims to be a lover of 'aggressive' cricket with 'intent'

 

[Black_Warrior]

Average 1st innings RR in Dominica is 2.79
Pakistan's RR 2.56

 

[Grumpy]

Not just Azhar...he pretty much hates this team and Misbah.

Guy claims to be a lover of 'aggressive' cricket with 'intent'

It's not that he hates this team. It's just that he's a clueless commentator and agrees with what his co-commentator is saying and will exaggerate it to the max. Fazeer mentioned the Pak run rate and Ramiz goes on a tangent about how limited Azhar Ali is blah blah blah.

If Pak were hypothetically 500/6 by lunch on Day 3, he would be waxing lyricals about how successful Misbah's Pak team has been and this is the formula they follow where they slow grind the opposition to dust.

The guy is a complete tool. Doesn't have a clue about any upcoming Pak players either. I remember the Sky team asking him about Sami Aslam last summer and the guy was surprised he had already played a Test in Bangladesh.

 

[Howe_zat]

Ramiz Raja has some personals issues with Azhar Ali or he's the biggest hater of attritional cricket.

Rameez Raja's ODI strike rate is 63

In tests his strike rate isn't confirmed but he boasts such delights as

29 (162) when Pakistan opted not to chase 213 to win in 78 overs against the West Indies, they drew the match and series
13* (69) against England, again opting not to chase a target which would have won Pakistan the series
2 (41) on a road at Adelaide in an innings where Imran Khan and Wasim Akram both hit hundreds

 

[harsh.ag]

Self loathing isn't that uncommon. India have Ravi Shastri who talks like he was Rambo in his playing days.

 

[Black_Warrior]

It's not that he hates this team. It's just that he's a clueless commentator and agrees with what his co-commentator is saying and will exaggerate it to the max. Fazeer mentioned the Pak run rate and Ramiz goes on a tangent about how limited Azhar Ali is blah blah blah.

If Pak were hypothetically 500/6 by lunch on Day 3, he would be waxing lyricals about how successful Misbah's Pak team has been and this is the formula they follow where they slow grind the opposition to dust.

The guy is a complete tool. Doesn't have a clue about any upcoming Pak players either. I remember the Sky team asking him about Sami Aslam last summer and the guy was surprised he had already played a Test in Bangladesh.

I have to disagree a little bit with that. It's not that he agrees with those around him. He just has a very simplistic, surface level understanding of batting like most casual fans which does not understand anything beyond 'aggressive/defensive and 'positive/negative' and 'intent'

His analysis when talking about Pakistan's batting is nothing more than what you will hear on Twitter/FB chatter or from members like Firebreaker on these forums which is either you are a positive player or a selfish negative player which is at it's heart a reading of the game based on Cricinfo scorecard (runs, strike rate, balls played), completely discounting the actual game, the conditions, context, form of the player, situation of the game etc.

As you said, he takes absolutely no interest in Pakistan cricket, can barely give a background on any of the established players like Azhar or Shafiq, let alone a Sami Aslam or an upcoming player who has not even played yet.

The Sky commentators Atherton and Hussain know more about Pakistan cricket than him and since they are also better commentators, they are able to analyse the Pakistan team a lot better than just the facile "aggressive/negative" narrative. This was clear during the test series last year when Ramiz would have a go at Pak batsmen for being slow or Misbah for what he perceived was a defensive field set and then get challenged straight away by Hussain and Athers.

He enjoyed doing commentary with Warne though because Warne also belongs in the 'intent' and 'aggression' camp

 

[vcs]

Yeah, as pundits their job is to provide decent insights and reasonable opinions that stand up to scrutiny, and are hopefully backed up by some evidence. Their own personal records shouldn't really matter, otherwise we might as well shut down this forum.

Unfortunately though, this particular opinion is just ****. That's all that really matters.

 

[NUFAN]

Keen to watch way more of this Test this weekend. You would imagine today could be series defining. Hope Hasan bowls well.