Pakistan v England Test Series *** Spoilers ***

I think England slightly underestimated Pakistan, and the first test result would have come as a shock but it would have been hard to try and adjust in such a short space of time. I don't think it will affect the rest of their summer though, I can see England beating Sri Lanka, Broad was simply world class.

I'm looking forward to the ODIs now, I think we will go in with mainly spin again. Hafeez, Ajmal and Afridi, with Gul and probably Wahab Riaz. It's not 'proper' cricket but it's still fun to watch if you like cricket, especially if it's a close, down to the last over game. :)
 
Evangelion said:
So, what's the verdict? Why did England collapse in 4 days every time?

Can't have been lack of confidence, because they entered this series as the favourites on the back of a long winning streak. Lack of discipline, perhaps? Not enough batsmen with spin experience? Too timid when they should have been attacking?
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I think The Spin (Guardian link warning, for all you posters to whom anything vaguely left-wing is anathema) put it quite succinctly: A complete failure by our middle order.

Some choice stat highlights in the article:

Bell, Morgan and Pietersen, on the other hand, combined for one partnership of more than 15 in this series, the 37 that the first two of them put on in the second innings on Monday.

The three of them played 29 innings in the UAE, and between them made a total of 326 runs, with a top score of 39. As a trio they were out-scored by England's tail of Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann and James Anderson, who made 355 from four fewer innings.

The middle order's combined performance in the Tests was the worst in the history of the England team, if you include only series of three matches or more.
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What makes it all the more curious is that this same trio had two of its very best ever series just last year, against Sri Lanka and India. As such, you've got to think that the break really did hurt them.

Also, since we're on the point, I feel I just have to include this article on the fabled "can't play spin" defence, because it's absolutely fantastic:

the notion that England just can't play spin rather demeans the efforts of Pakistan, whose series win is apparently no more than an inevitable byproduct of simply bowling spin and concocting home conditions in the citadel to plastic westernism that is the United Arab Emirates. Perhaps, given this cultural inevitability, it is even a little racist of Pakistan to have bowled spin at England so ruthlessly.

...

Traditionally, there have been two ways for an Englishman to be good at playing spin. You can either be ferrety and intense in the manner of Graeme Thorpe: unfurling the cheeky single, affecting a sodden white headband, and generally giving off a sense of having "gone native" out there, like some prairie huntsman barking out commands in pidgin Cherokee. Or you can be bullishly aggressive, just as Mike Gatting would hurl himself at some poor unsuspecting off-spinner, advancing at a crazed rectangular gallop like a drinks fridge sent bouncing down the communal staircase.
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I don't buy the claim that the UAE pitches were 'concocted' by Pakistan for home conditions. It strikes me as utterly preposterous to suggest that the Pakistani cricket team was somehow given complete control of pitch preparation in a foreign country. I hope that was simply ironic humour.

Forget the batsmen's turmoil against the spinners. Perhaps England just aren't as good as they have been led to believe
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That certainly rings true.

Perhaps England are simply a team with too many half-realised plans. "I just haven't been in there long enough to put my gameplan to the test," Ian Bell explained this week, albeit it may not be too far-fetched to suggest that in future Bell's gameplan be modified to include, right at the beginning, a bit that says "stay in long enough to effect gameplan"; or even that "stay in a bit longer" may be enough of a gameplan in itself.
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LOL! :p

I loved these comments about Adnan on Cricinfo:

Adnan has had a good series behind the stumps and has the opportunity to be Pakistan's first-choice keeper for many years to come but his excitable chatter was at times counterproductive. Strauss' edge flew to him at comfortable height but he put it down. For a few minutes he was quiet and you could hear your ears ringing.

Adnan's cacophony of cries often rent the air for inexplicable reasons. As do parrots, Adnan vocalises for many reasons. He may be excitedly greeting the day or summoning his family at sunset. He may be screeching when he is excited or when he is merely trying it on. He may screech when he thinks things have got too quiet or when he thinks it is his duty to scream. He just likes screeching. At one point he burst out coughing as if in sore need of a lozenge and Trott looked at him in deadpan fashion.
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(Source).

:D
 
I follow Pietersen on Twitter and throughout the entire series he didn't really seem to comprehend just how poorly him and the rest of the middle order were playing. It was only after the final innings that he realised he averaged just 11 in the series and that's when things finally hit home for him.

The middle order has been riding on the bandwagon for the last year or two with Trott and Cook scoring runs with ease. This series finally shows that the middle order simply isn't as brilliant as their averages suggest(big scores against weak teams have bloated most of their averages). For the Test team I would say KP and Morgan out, bring Bell up to 4(And pray he finds form again) and then bring in James Taylor and maybe someone like Buttler.

Alpherah said:
Not a fan but here's the ODI squad anyway:
ODI squad: Cook(c), Anderson, Bairstow, Bopara, Bresnan, Briggs, Broad, Buttler, Dernbach, Finn, Kieswetter, Morgan, Patel, Pietersen, Swann & Trott.

Team? Flower has said KP will open so thats one decided. Kieswetter surely won't play? he never scored above 25 in the Lions tour.
[edit] Tell a lie, he got one 100+ Score [/edit]

Cook, KP, Trott, Morgan, Bairstow, Buttler, Bresnan, Patel, Broad, Swann, Finn perhaps?
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What I would like to see:
Cook, KP, Morgan, Buttler, Bairstow, Kieswetter, Patel, Broad, Swann, Dernbach, Finn

What will most likely be the team:
Cook, KP, Trott, Morgan, Bopara, Kieswetter, Bairstow, Patel, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn.

I think Kieswetter has to be in the team because he is the best wicket-keeper of the lot. Yes people like Buttler can go behind the stumps, but there is a reason why Kieswetter is the keeper at Somerset and not Buttler..
 
Evangelion said:
I don't buy the claim that the UAE pitches were 'concocted' by Pakistan for home conditions. It strikes me as utterly preposterous to suggest that the Pakistani cricket team was somehow given complete control of pitch preparation in a foreign country. I hope that was simply ironic humour.
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Yeah, I realised after quoting it that without the "I can't play spin. You can't play spin" paragraph that leads into it, the irony is a bit harder to read. You managed it though, clearly. ;)
 
Monkeymatt said:
The middle order has been riding on the bandwagon for the last year or two with Trott and Cook scoring runs with ease.
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I'm not sure I buy that, at all.

Third test against Sri Lanka: 14/2 to 373/6

Fourth test against India: 97/2 to 487/5 (Trott out, Bell/KP/Morgan shifted up)

Second innings of the second test against India: 57/2 to 329/5 (Trott at 7, everyone shifted up again)

First innings of the first test again India: 62/2 to 373/6

There's no denying that Cook and Trott almost single(double?)-handedly did the batting side of our Ashes victory, but they were nowhere near as effective in our work of the last two series. This has been a much more sudden collapse than your theory of them not being much cop for some time.

That said, I agree that Morgan's been rubbish ;). As far as I worked out before, he's only contributed one decent score (where he's actually come in at 6 with us struggling, and posted a high total) so far in his test career.
 
Weebull said:
I'm not sure I buy that, at all.

Third test against Sri Lanka: 14/2 to 373/6

Fourth test against India: 97/2 to 487/5 (Trott out, Bell/KP/Morgan shifted up)

Second innings of the second test against India: 57/2 to 329/5 (Trott at 7, everyone shifted up again)

First innings of the first test again India: 62/2 to 373/6

There's no denying that Cook and Trott almost single(double?)-handedly did the batting side of our Ashes victory, but they were nowhere near as effective in our work of the last two series. This has been a much more sudden collapse than your theory of them not being much cop for some time.

That said, I agree that Morgan's been rubbish ;). As far as I worked out before, he's only contributed one decent score (where he's actually come in at 6 with us struggling, and posted a high total) so far in his test career.
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The stats don't lie I guess. I have always thought Bell was good, but Morgan isn't right for Test Cricket and Pietersen is even less reliable then public buses.. Hopefully either changes are made to that middle order, or this was enough of a kick up the rear that they start performing to the standard we expect from middle order batsmen with averages of nearly 50.

Evangelion said:
I don't buy the claim that the UAE pitches were 'concocted' by Pakistan for home conditions. It strikes me as utterly preposterous to suggest that the Pakistani cricket team was somehow given complete control of pitch preparation in a foreign country. I hope that was simply ironic humour.
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The ECB can control pitch preparation in England(and Wales) the Australian cricket team do the same in Australia as do every other nation in their home country. Since Pakistan are banned from playing in their own country, the UAE is their home country so why should they not be allowed to prepare the pitches there?

What I find amusing is how before the series started there was mass talk from "experienced" cricketers such as Michael Vaughan stating that the pitches would be flat and that almost all of the innings would be scores of 500 or more. And yet the highest score was 365..Who ever said Test Cricket was boring and predictable?
 
Monkeymatt said:
What I find amusing is how before the series started there was mass talk from "experienced" cricketers such as Michael Vaughan stating that the pitches would be flat and that almost all of the innings would be scores of 500 or more. And yet the highest score was 365..Who ever said Test Cricket was boring and predictable?
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As a general rule of thumb, the following people know nothing about cricket at all:

Vaughan, Bumble, Nasser, Gavaskar, Shastri*, Blofeld*, Boycott, and many more

*= pretty good commentator other than lack of knowledge

In fact the only two commentators who I've found to be consistently insightful, knowledgeable and interesting are Harsha Bhogle and Sourav Ganguly, with the latter at times being dodgy but on the whole good, and the former just being brilliant.
 
To be fair, the pitches were extremely flat, especially Days 1 and 2 on both the first two tests.
The first two tests SHOULD have been 400 plays 400 first innings and 150-200 second innings. But England were crap and Pakistan's batting has never been that strong even at the best of times.
 
I remember a little while back a cameraman zoomed in on some windmills (can't remember which ground) and Nasser commented on the picturesque scene and how beautiful the windmill was. He was being totally serious. Then the camera zoomed out and the windmill was a picture on one of the hoardings. Could hear the rest of the commentary team falling about laughing :D
 
Yeah i remember that!

Honestly, i know enough about cricket (not everything, but enough) to judge for myself the situation and if its a good ball/bad ball. I love the sky coms team for the banter tbh, even if they do talk a lot of crap when it comes to the facts.
 
ringo747 said:
What are you smoking? What a tool you are.
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Have you heard what these commentators say? Some lolworthy things have been said by the above people.

Here's some examples:

Someone interviewing Pietersen last year said: "are you enjoying being a role model for the younger, inexperienced guys in the side. Like Morgan, Bairstow, Kieswetter and Bell?" Bell has played international cricket for 8 years.

Blofeld was talking about Sreesanth, and accidentally called him Sreenath. Fair enough, but what he said next was funny. "Javagal Sreenath was a great Indian bowler. Sreesanth has a similar name. I suppose it's easy to get mixed up, his first name is Sree" It's not, his name is Shanthakumaran Sreesanth. His first name is Shanthakumaran.

Then there's Shastri, who during the England India series was always babbling on some crap about DRS. Most people on this forum were getting frustrated by his rants too.

Gavaskar does something which most commentators do, but happens to do it more than the others. What I'm talking about is ridiculously stupid phrases like "[The batting team] needs to score runs here", "[The fielding team] should be looking to take wickets" As I have stated before, this is not unique to Gavaskar, but is a problem with almost every cricket commentator.


Nasser Hussain was once surprised and critical when Ashwin came out to bat before Praveen Kumar. Despite the fact that Ashwin is a MUCH better batsman.
Oh yeah, and the best one was when Nasser was trying to explain why the ball swings "It's all about the seam position". HAHA, no ****ing way Sherlock!

There's more that I could mention, but this is just a taster. At the very least, I would expect professional commentators (most of them ex- Test players) to be a little more knowledgeable about players etc than myself, but often this doesn't seem to be the case. I think cricket commentary is crap, and needs serious rethinking. What I do like, and the Sky team seems to do this better than others, is when they do some technical analysis of players' technique, the pitch, the ball etc. I appreciate that not everyone watching cricket on TV has the same knowledge or interest, but what I think cricket commentary should give is a deep and insightful view into the game, and shouldn't be about telling the viewers that the batting team needs to score runs. I think they know that already.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Danny Morrison. That guy gets so excited when commentating on cricket, it's really fun to listen to (that might only be when he's commentating IPL though...)

Now, you can continue to call me a tool, or you can see that I have quite a good case for what I said, or you can counter what I've said with arguments of your own. Your call.
 
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You said those people know nothing about cricket. They maybe say things you don't agree with, or make mistakes from time time. Very different from the ridiculous statement that former international captains know nothing about the game they were involved in at the highest level.
 
As they were involved in the game at the highest level, I would most definitely expect them to have knowledge about the cricket in countries other than their own, purely out of their interest and passion for the game. Yet sadly, many of them know about cricket in their own respective countries, and very little about the game in other countries. This is really disappointing, as it is an international game.
 
TheCenturion said:
As a general rule of thumb, the following people know nothing about cricket at all:

Vaughan, Bumble, Nasser, Gavaskar, Shastri*, Blofeld*, Boycott, and many more

*= pretty good commentator other than lack of knowledge

In fact the only two commentators who I've found to be consistently insightful, knowledgeable and interesting are Harsha Bhogle and Sourav Ganguly, with the latter at times being dodgy but on the whole good, and the former just being brilliant.
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Agreed other than Nasser, in-between his to and fros with fellow commentators he does sometiems offer some decent insight. Vaughan, Shastri and Botham annoy me as they are so biased towards their team. Oh and Bob Willis when he's on one of his rants - that can really do my head in!

Having said that, they're still a million times better than any football commentators/pundits
 
I think some of those commentators are brilliant. Bob Willis on his rants whether I agree or disagree, is quality. Bumble is great, he's honest, unbiased and very enthuiastic about the game.
 
Love Boycott as a commentator, sad that he doesnt commentate for Sky sports, think that was due to him beating his ex gf or wife a few yrs ago. But that aside he usually knows what hes talking about. Same with Bumble, hes gets awfully excited when commentating and i love his little quips he makes every so often.

Willis is just plain boring, his voice annoys me but what annoys me more is him complaining about Ajmal's arm action during the test series with Pakistan saying it contravenes the ICC standards...poor show from a very sore english loser. Botham i dont mind too much although im no huge fan of his tbqh.
 
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