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

[Pothas]

Had a pretty ****ing awesome season just before he got picked though, so the other option of course is that he's just improved.

I think it's a little from Column A and a little from Column B though. He's clearly improved from his "above average county cricketer" days and he's going to be a good Test cricketer but I really don't think he's actually a proper top-10-in-the-world batsman. That said he was England's best specialist batsman in this match by a long way.

There was a lot of talk about him having mental frailties earlier In his career, that he was just too intense and desperate to succeed which is sonething he has overcame, think we may have seen glimpses of that in that tour of South Africa though. He is going to g throughsome tough times and I will be interested to see how he reacts to that, There is no doubt he is a very fine batsman though.

 

[Furball]

Congrats to the Pakistan fans. Been thoroughly outplayed.

To people chiming off about no.1 ranking and all that - it's a Test match. Sometimes, you lose. It happens.

Yep. In both innings, as soon as Pakistan sensed an opportunity, they didn't relent and didn't let England back into the game.

The people laughing at England really aren't being fair on Pakistan; they outplayed us and thoroughly deserved their win.

 

[KungFu_Kallis]

Probably a good result for cricket in general. Keeps the competition interesting betwen the various teams. Perhaps the gaps are closing between the mid to low ranked teams and the top ones. Imho the pecking order on recent form (say last 1-2 years) goes something like:

England
South Africa
Pakistan
Australia
India
Sri Lanka
New Zealand
West Indies
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Lol Misbah thanking the crowd. Most of it was missing.

 

[Pothas]

5 days of bat camp for us then.

 

[KungFu_Kallis]

Had a pretty ****ing awesome season just before he got picked though, so the other option of course is that he's just improved.

I think it's a little from Column A and a little from Column B though. He's clearly improved from his "above average county cricketer" days and he's going to be a good Test cricketer but I really don't think he's actually a proper top-10-in-the-world batsman. That said he was England's best specialist batsman in this match by a long way.

Not a proper top 10 batsman in what sense? If we dig up the all conquering computer rankings, would you say that all of the below are better "more proper" players than Trott? Imo Trott has already played more match winning or match changing innings than some of the below in about a quarter as many Tests played..

1 850 K.C. Sangakkara
2 846 J.H. Kallis
3 815 A.B. de Villiers
4 791 Younus Khan
5 782 A.N. Cook
6 781 I.J.L. Trott
7 780 I.R. Bell
8 775 T.T. Samaraweera
9 774 S.R. Tendulkar
10 768 M.J. Clarke

Alternatively, if the above list doesn't agree with you, which 10 batsmen in the world would you rank above Trott presently out of interest?

 

[social]

Probably a good result for cricket in general. Keeps the competition interesting betwen the various teams. Perhaps the gaps are closing between the mid to low ranked teams and the top ones. Imho the pecking order on recent form (say last 1-2 years) goes something like:

England
South Africa
Pakistan
Australia
India
Sri Lanka
New Zealand
West Indies
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh

Be very surprised if Pakistan were that competitive in Eng, SA or Oz as they simply do not have batting or seam bowling depth

 

[Xuhaib]

Great win the resurgence continues. England will hot back hard but we are ready tis will be a great series.

 

[Prince EWS]

Not a proper top 10 batsman in what sense? If we dig up the all conquering computer rankings, would you say that all of the below are better "more proper" players than Trott? Imo Trott has already played more match winning or match changing innings than some of the below in about a quarter as many Tests played..

1 850 K.C. Sangakkara
2 846 J.H. Kallis
3 815 A.B. de Villiers
4 791 Younus Khan
5 782 A.N. Cook
6 781 I.J.L. Trott
7 780 I.R. Bell
8 775 T.T. Samaraweera
9 774 S.R. Tendulkar
10 768 M.J. Clarke

Yeah I would tbh.

I think he's a good batsman - above average by Test standards - but I wouldn't have in my top ten in the world.

 

[Xuhaib]

Be very surprised if Pakistan were that competitive in Eng, SA or Oz as they simply do not have batting or seam bowling depth

we did win 2 out of 6 tests in England with a cack batting line up some thing India and Lanka did not do once in 7 games.

 

[KungFu_Kallis]

Yeah I would tbh.

I think he's a good batsman - above average by Test standards - but I wouldn't have in my top ten in the world.

Got my edit in too late still keen to hear your top 10

 

[Prince EWS]

Got my edit in too late still keen to hear your top 10

Kallis
Tendulkar
Sangakkara
Chanderpaul
Samaraweera
Younis
de Villiers
Clarke
Bell
Amla

No particular order ftr.

 

[KungFu_Kallis]

Be very surprised if Pakistan were that competitive in Eng, SA or Oz as they simply do not have batting or seam bowling depth

Fair point.. but some other teams aren't too good lately in the subcontinent so it might sorta balance out... but not easy to separate some of the teams even on paper so that's kinda my point... interesting times

 

[Furball]

we did win 2 out of 6 tests in England with a cack batting line up some thing India and Lanka did not do once in 7 games.

With a much, much better seam attack than this one. Gul's gone from being the first change bowler who doesn't do much on that tour to the attack leader.

 

[Spark]

Not a proper top 10 batsman in what sense? If we dig up the all conquering computer rankings, would you say that all of the below are better "more proper" players than Trott? Imo Trott has already played more match winning or match changing innings than some of the below in about a quarter as many Tests played..

1 850 K.C. Sangakkara
2 846 J.H. Kallis
3 815 A.B. de Villiers
4 791 Younus Khan
5 782 A.N. Cook
6 781 I.J.L. Trott
7 780 I.R. Bell
8 775 T.T. Samaraweera
9 774 S.R. Tendulkar
10 768 M.J. Clarke

Alternatively, if the above list doesn't agree with you, which 10 batsmen in the world would you rank above Trott presently out of interest?

On form? All of the above.

 

[Edged&Taken]

[/IMG]

 

[Shri]

Tipping England to play better in the next game. Think Pakistan will win after a tight game in the 2nd test.

 

[Jacknife]

I knew that special talent that England have to play like morons was still in there somewhere. That was ugly, the second dig was even worse than the 1st, what a bunch of clowns.

 

[Daemon]

So first match in and my predictions of 1-0 England have already been dicked. I really suck at this. Predicted a 2-1 to Australia as well iirc.

 

[KungFu_Kallis]

Kallis
Tendulkar
Sangakkara
Chanderpaul
Samaraweera
Younis
de Villiers
Clarke
Bell
Amla

No particular order ftr.

Oh come on, the order is the whole fun

Mine would be.... hmmm.... hard to balance current form vs long term class when drawing up the list, depends on your personal emphasis I suppose.. my order would be something like

Tendulkar - still looks a million dollars and churning out solid scores if not hundreds)
Kallis - still majestic at the crease and scoring big
Trott - seems to make mostly tough runs
Clarke - improving massively, gets tough runs now
Cook - lean run lately but been churning out hundreds
Dravid - looks out of form in current series but been massive the last year or so
Sangakkara - consistent and seems to get a hundred in every series
Hussey - playing tight again, amazing run of form in the last year
Amla - improving, a flair player, and making more hundreds now
De Villiers - improving, ditto with the flair but still learning how to make tough runs

Omitted Bell as I still think he's allergic to tough runs I guess I have a thing about them and they count about 4x more than soft runs to me