Pakistan's chances in England this summer

[Richard]

Good job I'm not at the helm then, otherwise we'd be awful at OD cricket. Oh, hang on..

Problem has been, people of that mind have been at the helm.

 

[Richard]

England start favourites granted but Pakistan have a pretty good record in England ( I don't think England have beaten them at home for a very long time)

England last beat Pakistan at home in 1982, though they should have won a decade later (only a near-unthinkable 9th-wicket stand between the two Ws turned defeat to victory for Pakistan in the first result-Test).

 

[Richard]

It's no accident that we haven't won a home series against Pakisatn since 1982.

Well... as I've just said, if we could've polished-off the tail in the Second Test in 1992 we'd have won that series.

 

[Richard]

(assuming Shoaib won't be fit)

 

[Richard]

I don't think Pakistan should be written off in this series, infact I think they will pose a more than potent threat to England. 2-0 is a pretty convincing scoreline, even if it was in completely different conditions.

A convincing scoreline, but not unusually it said little about the cricket played.
England were much the better side in the first 2 Tests and even at Lahore should easily have secured the draw.

 

[Richard]

New conditions though... the ball will swing.

Will it? We've not seen proper amounts of conventional swing in England for quite a while (2000 was the last time).

players like Mohammad Yousuf (still getting used to the name) and Yunis Khan are always good for a century

Mohammad Yousuf is nowhere near as good as Younis Khan for a century - one is a flat-track, weak-attack bully; the other is a very, very fine batsman.

 

[adharcric]

OK then, so if the 3rd Test is a flat track and a high scoring draw, I assume that will mean you can't call India's 1-0 victory over England a series win then.

Actually you can, because the first test at Nagpur was well contested on a reasonable pitch. It involved several battles between good bowling and good batting, unlike the first two tests in the India-Pakistan series, where bowling didn't stand much of a genuine chance.

 

[Richard]

Nagpur was a flat enough pitch. Not stupid like the First and Second Pak-Ind Tests, but still plenty flat that a result was never likely.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

Problem has been, people of that mind have been at the helm.

The "blueprint for cricket" written after '99 must've have included ODI's then. I must say I'm jolly happy at where we find ourselves in the test arena, and am pretty indifferent to our positon in the limited-overs format.

I can fully understand people asking questions though, IIRC up until '96 we weren't too bad, and almost always won the Texaco/Natwest series', and we probably won the '97 pre-Ashes series too.

Where did it all go wrong.

 

[adharcric]

Nagpur was a flat enough pitch. Not stupid like the First and Second Pak-Ind Tests, but still plenty flat that a result was never likely.

Yet we nearly could've had one had Dravid accelerated a bit earlier ...

 

[SJS]

Pakistan's big problem will be how their opening batsmen fare. But for that Pakistan should do well. The bad starts may set them back and thats my worry.

 

[Armadillo]

Err, what? Younis has played 2 Tests in England (both 5 years ago - hardly "recent") and did well in both.
Yes, he didn't do much in an extremely limited county stint but I'm willing to bet quite a bit that'd have been different if he'd had a decent-length one.

Bit of a Younis Khan fan aren't you Richard?

 

[Jono]

A convincing scoreline, but not unusually it said little about the cricket played.
England were much the better side in the first 2 Tests and even at Lahore should easily have secured the draw.

How were England the better side in the 2nd test, when they was a good chance they were going to lose, were it not for KP and Flintoff standing tall? Yeah they got a 2nd innings lead (thanks to the ridiculous run out of Inzy) but they were 4-20 in their 2nd innings at one stage! A loss was on the cards until England fought hard for the draw.

And regarding the 1st test, they lost that because as simple as it was, they couldn't chase on the last day. If you dominate 3 days of cricket, set yourselves up in a winning position and then throw it away by not being able to chase 198, then you didn't play good cricket, becaue test cricket isn't solely about 1) an innings lead or 2) dominating the first few days, its about making the killer blow when you need to. England didn't do that, Pakistan did.

The 2-0 scoreline summed up the series well. Put it this way, in 2 of the 3 tests, on day 5 England had no chance of victory, Pakistan did. The only time England ever had a chance of winning the test on the last day was the first, and Pakistan had a chance of winning that (and obviously did) too.

 

[marc71178]

Nagpur was a flat enough pitch. Not stupid like the First and Second Pak-Ind Tests, but still plenty flat that a result was never likely.

But you see that argument is only valid when it's discussing India losing.

Wasn't it the 2nd Test that Pakistan had India in danger of following on?

 

[marc71178]

Yet we nearly could've had one had Dravid accelerated a bit earlier ...

That target was always going to be out of reach - Flintoff made sure with his declaration.

 

[tooextracool]

I think you will find that a full strength England batting line up at home wont be weak...

it wont? The batting has been poor the moment England dropped Thorpe, and it hasnt changed since.

 

[tooextracool]

I don't think much has changed from the Ashes really. I think we're big favourites.

I don't think anyone was really expecting us to do well in Asia, because we haven't got any spinners ourselves, and we can't play spin ourselves (as Warne had already demonstrated in The Ashes).

In all other conditions, we're 2nd best.

actually incase you havent noticed, we've failed miserably in the subcontinent because we cant bat.

 

[Tom Halsey]

actually incase you havent noticed, we've failed miserably in the subcontinent because we cant bat.

Against spin.

For the most part we've looked okay against pace.

 

[tooextracool]

Bit of a Younis Khan fan aren't you Richard?

probably a converted one because not long ago he was calling for his head.

 

[tooextracool]

Against spin.

For the most part we've looked okay against pace.

have you been preoccupied during the winter?

heres a quick recap of what happened just for you:
mohommad asif destroys us in the warm up game
shoaib akthar was leading wicket taker in pakistan
munaf patel destroys us in warm up game
shree santh takes 4 wickets in the first innings of the first test
munaf destroys us in the 2nd test

im sorry but we just cant bat period.