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

[Bouncer]

Originally Posted by Agent Nationaux

I would dearly love to see an India, Pak Test series being played on the green pitches of England. Now that would be a gun series.

two years ago when Eng offered hosting Pak's test matches in england, I wouldnt be surprised this idea must have came to their mind considering the huge numbers of indian and Pakistanis living in UK.

It would have been a lot of fun, result would have been if not 3-0 but at least 2-0 for Pak, but thanks to the greedy, money hungry, filthy cockroaches like 3 of us have single handedly made sure that it will never happen.

[lockton2skipper]

england need to play 2 spinners tremlett didn't look fit.

[Faisal1985]

I was really thinking what am i going to brag about once we win this series and England does not win a single test...i guess i will say at least we won a test when we toured England....but only after this series.

[Xuhaib]

Zaheer Khan and Praveen kumar would have eaten our 2010 batting line up for breakfast in England. If there is a series between the two sides right now I think it will be 1-1. Indian greats are still pretty good in their home conditions however i don't see India getting a way past Younis and Misbah with their bowling attack.

[Shri]

Originally Posted by Black_Warrior

3-0 to Pakistan tbh

That might actually be a good thing for us. I must be the only guy hoping for a lot of white washes to India so that things have to change. That said Pak always self destructs once in a series against us and its too much to ask for a Pak white wash.

[GingerFurball]

Originally Posted by Bouncer

two years ago when Eng offered hosting Pak's test matches in england, I wouldnt be surprised this idea must have came to their mind considering the huge numbers of indian and Pakistanis living in UK.

It would have been a lot of fun, result would have been if not 3-0 but at least 2-0 for Pak, but thanks to the greedy, money hungry, filthy cockroaches like 3 of us have single handedly made sure that it will never happen.

The problem with getting England to host Pakistan's "home" Tests again is Ijaz Butt ****ting all over the ECB's doorstep when the spot-fixing scandal broke.

[Viscount Tom]

Originally Posted by Xuhaib

Zaheer Khan and Praveen kumar would have eaten our 2010 batting line up for breakfast in England. If there is a series between the two sides right now I think it will be 1-1. Indian greats are still pretty good in their home conditions however i don't see India getting a way past Younis and Misbah with their bowling attack.

This line up would fend them off without to much trouble.

Khan was poor in England the man didn't get fit for it so he can be ruled out of actually playing in the serie on the basis that he's a lazy f***.

Kumar's wickets in the England series had more to do with the helpfulness of the conditions than anything else, he was the only bowler really bowling consistently which meant he was the one most likely to take wickets.

That said we haven't seen enough of Pakistan's seamers this series to really judge them.

[Black_Warrior]

Originally Posted by Viscount Tom

This line up would fend them off without to much trouble.

Khan was poor in England the man didn't get fit for it so he can be ruled out of actually playing in the serie on the basis that he's a lazy f***.

Kumar's wickets in the England series had more to do with the helpfulness of the conditions than anything else, he was the only bowler really bowling consistently which meant he was the one most likely to take wickets.

That said we haven't seen enough of Pakistan's seamers this series to really judge them.

I always felt Pravin Kumar would find English conditions extremely useful and he did.. So if he finds English conditions helpful, I am not sure the Pakistani batting line up which is notorious for not being able to handle the moving ball would be able to deal with him? Even Wavell Hinds can prove to be dangerous when it comes Pakistan playing the moving ball
2nd SF: Pakistan v West Indies at Southampton, Sep 22, 2004 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

[r3alist]

The poll is all level!!

I wouldn't want a road in the second test, that would suit England a lot more than us, their batting is very deep and they could punish our bowlers.

[Black_Warrior]

Its hilarious when someone called biased indian votes for Pakistan in a poll

[flibbertyjibber]

Originally Posted by lockton2skipper

england need to play 2 spinners tremlett didn't look fit.

Wouldn't disagree, looking at how he bowled it beggars belief the management let him play to start with.

[Viscount Tom]

I;d have gone for Finn tbh. If your going to have the 3rd seamer you pick the one who is fit.

[slowfinger]

30 England fans v about 12 Pakistan fans and 17 anons tbh.

[CWB304]

Originally Posted by Viscount Tom

I;d have gone for Finn tbh. If your going to have the 3rd seamer you pick the one who is fit.

Tremlett should not have played in Dubai but in the end it made no difference to the result. Similarly the question of whether Monty or Finn plays the next match - I favour Finn but would have no objections to Monty - is a toss up as both bring something extra to the table. England's problems are in the batting; it will be very difficult for them to hit back because they're carrying two passengers on the batting side.

Ian Bell as ever proved that, against a top class attack, he's a walking wicket. It really makes me laugh when people so much as mention Bell when speaking of the best batsmen in the game, as if feasting on poor quality attacks like the Indian attack over the English summer makes him all of a sudden a top batsman. He has with one or two exceptions, ALWAYS failed against well rounded attacks which put pressure on a batsman to score and threaten wickets with both seam and spin bowling options, and this Pakistan attack is one such. Playing him against this Pakistan attack is like coming into the game a man down.

Bell is NOT a good player of top class seam bowling and lamentably inept against really good spin, as his travails against Warne, Ajmal and every decent spinner he's ever faced prove. He looks to play shots he is not good enough to play against the seamers and he is too tentative against the spinners because he never seems to be able to pick their variations with confidence. That some were touting him as "England's best player of spin bowling" just goes to show how clueless some people are about this game. Bell will not aggregate 150 runs for this series; in fact I'll eat my hat if he gets a single fifty.

As for the other passenger, what can I say except that the long slow decline of Kevin Pietersen continues? The way he got out in his two knocks in the last test encapsulate where he is as a batsman just now: mentally clueless as to how to go about scoring runs against decent bowling attacks. It looked like every single ball he faced was likely to get him out. The lbw in the first innings summed up the general air of insecurity and even panic he evinces against accurate slow bowling these days, whilst the hoick to midwicket in the second dig was just another way of saying "I know I'm not good enough to tough this one out, so I'll throw my wicket away and pretend the problem is carelessness". It's not. That he has made three big doubles against weak attacks in recent times tells us that he is as capable as any Indian flat track bully of filling his boots when the going is easy.

Those innings also seem to have obscured the fact that for the rest of the time he's looked the same confused and flawed player that he has been for the past three or four years. What happened with the doubles was that he saw Cook, whom he only grudgingly rates, and Bell, whom he (correctly) rates not all, compiling daddy hundreds and more against lame attacks and thought, "f*ck, these guys, who are not even in my league, are not only being compared to me, but they're being talked of as being better than me!" So he knuckled down and followed his teammates by playing those boring average-boosting innings which have made such a nonsense of Test batting averages in recent times.

Bell is a poster boy for this sort of nonsense, but there are others like Jayawardene, Samaraweera and Hussey. The latter three, like Cook, are actually decent players, and would have comfortably averaged in the mid-forties had their Test careers begun a decade or fifteen years before they did. Bell OTOH would have struggled to get his average into the forties.

KP has not fulfilled his promise because he did not knuckle down and tighten up his technique in the areas he needed to tighten up after his first flush of success post-2005 Ashes. Now he's too old to adapt, and just looks awkward when he tries. Look at Sangakkara. That is what applying intellect and hard work to solving technical issues in batting can bring you. The Sangakkara of ten years ago who averaged in the low forties as a wicketkeeper-batsman and the Sangakkara of today who is the best batsman in the world are completely different players. Everything is tighter and more compact; gone are all the loose offside "dasher" shots. What "flair" there is comes from the correctness of the strokes, from form serving function. Even the signature one-kneed cover drive is not a flair shot, but rather a function of getting the front foot in the right place and sequenced weight transfer through the shot. Because his batting has evolved in this way his pyjama cricket game has suffered, but who really cares? The Sangakkara's of this world won't be judged by the mindless bish bosh of meaningless ODIs such as the current series between SL and the rainbow chokers.

The two best England batsmen are Trott and Prior; they should bat three (Trott) and five (Prior) with Pietersen between them and Bell dropped. I say reprieve Pietersen because there is always an outside chance that he is able somehow to survive until he gets to thirty or so and then gains confidence from remembering that he has made big centuries against even better attacks than this one. But Trott or whoever else is set when he gets in must do their best to shield him from Ajmal and Gul until he looks comfortable. Bopara should come in at seven to shepherd the tail with Broad coming in at eight and Swann and Anderson and Finn to follow. It probably won't be enough to save the series but who knows.

[Eds]

Lol @ dropping Bell for Bopara.