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

[Z-Man]

I had better not keep my expectations high.
I can clearly see a couple of nice test matches because of the Pitches being absolutely flat which makes English bowling a bit weak but considering Tremlett/Bresnan form I would still fear our Batsmen falling like cards.

Swann is an extra bonus, I do not see many good Pakistani spin players although Asad Shafiq and Umar Akmal handles them well.

Oh and by the way, we should think about the Zimbabwe series first, the way they are playing is .
I can see our top order failing to Brian Vitori, considering the history of Pakistan making LUL bowlers seem like Shane Warnes and Wasim Akrams.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

Brian Vitori isn't LUL. He is the next best thing like Southee. I expect him to have a great career. He can swing the new ball both ways at good speed, and has that in-swinger to the right-hander, something that Wahab is still missing from his armoury.

 

[Jacknife]

Pakistan will win this series.

England might rip Pakistan a new one,but Junaid Khan will rip England two new ones.

2 >1

Course he will.

2-0 England.
When SA played there they didn't have a spinner good enough to exploit the conditions, England have.

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

If the wickets are as flat as people say, 5 bowlers or 2 spinners a necessity? Can't see us having problems making runs but I can see us having issues with regards taking the 20 wickets...

 

[Fusion]

If it's the expected roads, then 1-0 England.

 

[Z-Man]

Brian Vitori isn't LUL. He is the next best thing like Southee. I expect him to have a great career. He can swing the new ball both ways at good speed, and has that in-swinger to the right-hander, something that Wahab is still missing from his armoury.

Sorry, I meant to say 'moreover' instead of considering.
The guy Brian Vitori is really good and adding to it is the history of Pakistan falling to Nathan Hauritz - the next big thing

 

[Xuhaib]

I think England should go in with a combo 6-4-1 rather then 5-5-1.Prior and Bres @ 6 &7 could be a risk on sub cont turners.

 

[Prince EWS]

I think England should go in with a combo 6-4-1 rather then 5-5-1.Prior and Bres @ 6 &7 could be a risk on sub cont turners.

Prior's comfortably one of England's best players of spin; I don't think having him at six would be a problem at all.

I wouldn't call it a "risk", but it's just something that isn't needed. Yeah, Bresnan and Tremlett are both much, much better cricketers than Morgan but when the attack is functioning at such a high level you just don't really need five frontline bowlers. The extra batsman just offers a lot more to England at the moment, even though it seems just wrong for a cricketer the quality of Bresnan or Tremlett to miss out for Morgan. The strength of England's lower order makes it very tempting, but it'd be a bit of a cop-out selection based more on fairness than winning IMO.

I really like the idea of Samit Patel batting six (or seven behind Prior) but he hasn't scored consistent runs since about three seasons ago now and I think I instinctively over-rate his bowling a little bit for some reason. I'd love him to finish the county season with a couple of big tons to really put his name forward.

 

[marc71178]

Interestingly. Samit has 31 @ 25.74 in division 1 this season (for comparison Monty has 54 @ 26.64) - not sure how comparable those figures actually are and it's obvious Monty is a superior bowler, but would Samit be good enough as back up?

 

[BoyBrumby]

Fit as our chaps are, won't it be something like 300 degrees over there? If the pitches are flat an extra bowler might be very useful.

I just hope Dusty & co don't give Ravi another go based on his bowling, which looks a lot more useful on paper than I think it'll be in tests. If he scores big at The Oval then fair dos (I suppose), but if he fails again surely there's no way back? For once we have some serious (and young) options to replace him as first reserve.

 

[Prince EWS]

Interestingly. Samit has 31 @ 25.74 in division 1 this season (for comparison Monty has 54 @ 26.64) - not sure how comparable those figures actually are and it's obvious Monty is a superior bowler, but would Samit be good enough as back up?

He took a heap of wickets on what was deemed an unfit pitch for play, didn't he?

 

[flibbertyjibber]

So difficult for us to say what may or may not happen on these pitches until we are out there, if it so hot and dry i presume it will reverse so with no sweat Cook looking after the ball Anderson and Bresnan should get it to go a bit and that may be enough to get the wickets.

Wouldn't be against playing Patel if we need a 2nd spinner but Morgan is a very good player of spin and it sounds like the pace attack of Pakistan will be nullified by the pitches anyway.Stick to what got us to the top, the 4 man attack is doing the business more often than not and use Trott as a fill in if required to keep the big guns fresh.

 

[smash84]

Wahab must absolutely play in the UAE. He is probably our best exponent of reverse swing bar Umar Bull

 

[Agent Nationaux]

So difficult for us to say what may or may not happen on these pitches until we are out there, if it so hot and dry i presume it will reverse so with no sweat Cook looking after the ball Anderson and Bresnan should get it to go a bit and that may be enough to get the wickets.

Wouldn't be against playing Patel if we need a 2nd spinner but Morgan is a very good player of spin and it sounds like the pace attack of Pakistan will be nullified by the pitches anyway.Stick to what got us to the top, the 4 man attack is doing the business more often than not and use Trott as a fill in if required to keep the big guns fresh.

Pakistan's pace attack will be nullified by the pitches but England's will be able to reverse in the same conditions.

 

[smash84]

yeah i was thinking the same. I think the pak attack should be able to reverse it better

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Pakistan's pace attack will be nullified by the pitches but England's will be able to reverse in the same conditions.

England have got the best reverse swing attack at present. To be fair i haven't seen the new lot of Pakistan bowlers but apart from Gul nobody to really fear as they aren't in the same league as the two suspended guys.

Just making the same points you lot are that our attack will be nullified totally by the pitches and will be useless. Works both ways. Remember we are number 1 and you are lowly ranked, haters can suck it.

 

[Z-Man]

Wahab Riaz is overrated in Tests. He tends to throw too many no-balls and wides.

In ODIs, I am fine with him.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Looking forward to the series, Pakistan always seem to find decent bowlers from somewhere and they are generally exciting to watch as they are so unpredictable. Certainly not writing them off but the way we have destroyed better sides than them of late it would be a major surprise to see them win against a side like England if we play anything like our best.

 

[smash84]

yeah nobody is saying we wont get destroyed but just saying that the English bowlers aren't really quite as skilled at reverse swing as our boys .

Can your boys do this? (cbf saying this)

Perfect yorker by Wahab Riaz - YouTube

Wahab Riaz's Perfect Yorker to Yuvraj - YouTube

 

[Howe_zat]

yeah nobody is saying we wont get destroyed but just saying that the English bowlers aren't really quite as skilled at reverse swing as our boys .

Can your boys do this? (cbf saying this)

Perfect yorker by Wahab Riaz - YouTube

Wahab Riaz's Perfect Yorker to Yuvraj - YouTube

They're excellent deliveries, but England's attack has just about everything covered these days. Of yorkers in ODIs, the first thing that comes to mind is Bresnan's 5-for against India and Broad's 4-14 against South Africa, and those are just from the World Cup.

At any rate, England's attack is almost certainly the best exponent of reverse swing right now. Off the top of my head I can think of Bresnan's ball to dismiss Tamim in the Test at Dhaka, but especially Anderson's old ball spell on day 4 at Sydney, to dismiss Khawaja and Clarke. (skip to 1:28. A little later on there's Tremlett dismissing Johnson with another reversing beauty.)