***Official*** India in Pakistan

[marc71178]

Why the hell isn't Pak declaring??? why is Younus still batting??

Why should they have declared?

 

[cricketboy29]

i must say sheerindianspeed our bowlers have looked anything but speedy in this test so far

 

[adharcric]

i must say sheerindianspeed our bowlers have looked anything but speedy in this test so far

considering our own wicketkeeper (dhoni) bowled only 10 mph slower than our strike pace bowlers with the new ball & the opposition spinner (afridi) bowled nearly as fast as our strike pace bowlers, definitely not speedy ... but zaheer got solid movement and rp singh was pretty good, while pathan bowled fine in the 2nd innings ... they should all be retained in the test pace rotation and agarkar should be permanently replaced by a speedster (munaf or vrv)

 

[SJS]

Inzi was very vocal before the start of the series about getting bouncy wkts.I'm not sure why would Inzi make a clown of himself by repeatidly asking for bouncy wkts yet making sure that the wkt were made batting paradise?

How much Inzi and Woolmer were responsible for all the pitch mess is difficult to know really, but i do think that slightly better pitches would have been prepared had Inzi and Bob shown some guts.

What we can do except speculate ? But there are indicators.

First, there is a history. Pakistan (and India) when insecure about losing to the other have resorted to making flat wickets in the past. This is well documented. Not just against each other but also against other countries. Imran wrote in his autobiography, more than 20 years ago,

"We beat Australia at home because the wickets were prepared in our favour.....

we won the first test on a turning wicket and the other two tests were played on dead wickets that gave no hope of a positive result. From the first day, everyone knew there was nothing but boring, purposeless cricket ahead.....

This ridiculous bias in favour of batsmen did us no favours at all. Huge totals by our batsmen simply papered over the cracks and brought no tensions into the game; when we needed to play at our best in the crisis during subsequent series, we were unfitted for the task."

Two, there were those who predicted before the series that Pakistan will go for batting tracks in the first two tests, pile up big scores and hope India will succumb once to the pace of Akhtar and Sami, INSPITE of the wicket. If not, it was okay and they would try for a win only in the last test.

It was said, dont listen to the protestaions of Woolmer and Inzy, they are NOT going to do anything but employ safety-first tactics at least in the first two tests.

Three, all this talk of not being able to produce a good wicket because of the weather and lack of enough time, gives things away a bit. You need good weather and time to produce a good batting track. If you dont get enough time you get an 'under-prepared' wicket !

These were NOT under prepared wickets. These were over prepared, over rolled and over 'shaved'.

Yes you need time to grow grass on the wicket but you dont need any time to LEAVE the grass which is there on the wicket.

There was grass on the wicket, there almost always is some on turfs to bind the top, which was then rmoved blade by bloody blade. This TAKES time. And yes it can be done even if the weather is cloudy !

Countries where weather does not provide sunshine before the matches, England is a prime example, end up having MORE bowler friendly wickets not less !!

In India whenever we have a fiasco because a match ends up in two ot three days, one does hear the odd whimper of not having enough time to prepare the wicket but this is the first time I have heard a complaint, of a wicket lasting five days and being good for another ten, that we needed MORE time.

No sir. These protestations give the game away.

Finally, every single player that I have heard from or read, from Pakistan mind you, has said, without any reservations that to say that the coach and captain had no say in wicket preparations is poppycock. They ahve always had and will always have. Its because of their unfettered power that the poor curator who is being made the scape goat cant say a word in his defense to contradict them.

Most of these ex-Pakistan players agree that Pakistan expected that, inspite of the flat tracks, India could fumble against sheer pace and reverse swing. That this did not happen was the one thing they had not accounted for. This is what has made Inzy look ridiculous. The fact that Indian batting has shown itself to be qualitatively different from England's.

AND, one more factor.

Pakistan has realised that other than Akhtar, they have no other bowlers who can take the wicket out of the equation and Akhtar can bowl four, at best five overs a session. If Pakistan had three or four bowlers like him, India would have been in some distress I assure you. Pakistan highly over estimated what the likes of Sami would do to Indian batting.

No we dont know FOR SURE if Inzy ordered the wickets to be dead but there are a fair amount of indicators for people to draw that conclusion.

 

[mayadevi]

Oh my God, PCB are chickens.If Inzi and Woolmer don't have the balls to play against India on sporting pitches, then why they play cricket atall??

 

[Tony Blade]

What we can do except speculate ? But there are indicators.
etc..

That may very well be the case, but I would have thought they would have tried to make the Faisalabad pitch more bowler friendly after the intese criticism following the Lahore test match.. plus the last two tests in 2004 were played on lively pitches, where we had the same captain..

 

[mayadevi]

That may very well be the case, but I would have thought they would have tried to make the Faisalabad pitch more bowler friendly after the intese criticism following the Lahore test match.. plus the last two tests in 2004 were played on lively pitches, where we had the same captain..

Yeah, that same captain got a wonderful response from his home country after his team was disgraced at the hands of Ganguly led indian team, and thats the reason why he's acting cowardly and is reluctant to face Indian pacers on lively wicket

 

[Tony Blade]

Okay.

 

[deeps]

interestingly shahid afridi took the new ball in the indian 2nd innings. He can get his quicker ball at 130km/hr, so how quick were his medium pacers?

 

[honestbharani]

While we can only speculate as to who's responsible for the pitch preparation, I firmly believe that it was a case of bad judgement that caused them to be so flat. I think Inzi/Woolmer wanted the same type of pitches that they got for the England series. However, all the parties involved (including the groundsmen, Inzi etc) did not take weather into consideration and the frankly were inept in creating the type of pitches they wanted. The result is the roads that we've seen so far. I don't believe at all that Inzi/Woolmer would've wanted pitches THIS flat. That goes against all logic.

Actually, the wickets against England were ALMOST roads as well. English batsmen didn't play well enough and they weren't as comfortable against Kaneria as the Indians are. It was only Shoaib and Kaneria that won them those matches and they were rather close wins as well, relatively speaking. It wasn't as if Pakistan ran away with those matches in 3 days or anything. Imran Khan made the point that the pitches of both series have been very similar. The difference has been the batting of the Indians compared to the Englishmen. Boycott also made the same point and both Rameez and Manjrekar also agreed with him


I will tell you what was the most stupefying thing though.... Manjrekar, on the Straight Drive preview show on Jan 12 night, actually said that he always knew that flat wickets would be prepared since Inzy was captain and Imran agreed with his view. Rameez said almost the same thing during his segment as well.

 

[jack_sparrow]

Words of wisdom..

This test proves, indias bowling lineup is like poo.

Then again it wasn't a secret. Pakistan's bowling will torture the indians, and thats a fact jack.

Indian bowling will not get a break.

Younis and Yousuf will dominate.

Kaif and Yuvraj will break through shoaib.

Pakistan sucks. I hate India with a passion.

I don't care about the series, why are they playing evey year.

http://forum.cricketweb.net/showthread.php?p=688740#post688740


Well I was right for the most part. pshh

 

[honestbharani]

That may very well be the case, but I would have thought they would have tried to make the Faisalabad pitch more bowler friendly after the intese criticism following the Lahore test match.. plus the last two tests in 2004 were played on lively pitches, where we had the same captain..

yeah and the way their batters batted in those two may have influenced him wanting flat tracks... Plus, those conditions can be utilized only by the likes of Gul,Balaji and Pathan... you know, line and length and swing bowlers who don't have much pace. Those guys bowl at medium pace and the ball grips the surface a little and holds up and then moves, making batting very difficult. The fact that they didn't pick Gul immediately gave away that THOSE pitches won't be prepared this time. But I think they SHOULD prepare such tracks and take a risk. Asif and Gul can be a very formidable pair on those type of tracks and Shoaib and Kaneria are almost always dangerous. And Rana is a good swing bowler as well, even though he can go for runs at times.... This should be the pace attack that they should be looking at, for the future. Sami is simply not good enough and I cannot believe that they haven't figured it out yet.

 

[honestbharani]

BTW, another disturbing little aspect I have noticed in recent times about Pakistan...... It seems Younis Khan isn't all that well respected. I mean, in 2004, Shoaib and SEhwag had a bit of a slanging match but soon Inzy came over and talked to both of them, esp. Shoaib (understandably), and soon it was all put to rest. But when Afridi kept sledging Pathan (and using very very foul language, esp. about Pathan's parents and family from certain rumours), and Younis talked to him, he didn't even listen. He just walked away and then Shoaib continued the sledging. And yesterday, Shoaib flat out refused to bowl in the middle of the ground in front of everyone when Younis asked him to bowl. Remember how Afridi refused to open and reportedly almost got to blows with Younis about this in the Caribbean last year... All this certainly doesn't augur well for Pak's future if Younis is the next in line to be captain.

 

[Tony Blade]

Yup, thats a big problem in Pakistan. Respect is synonymous with seniority and not ability or position..thats why its always going to be tough having a relatively in-experienced captain.

 

[GotSpin]

yes. It is dharanbdharan@hotmail.com.

off topic: I would add you but my msn isn't letting me...add me then xiw4life at hotmail dot com

 

[Choora]

All this certainly doesn't augur well for Pak's future if Younis is the next in line to be captain.

Younis is a strong guy, when ever he will get a chance to become the captain, he will sort things out and will be a good skipper

 

[Choora]

yeah and the way their batters batted in those two may have influenced him wanting flat tracks... Plus, those conditions can be utilized only by the likes of Gul,Balaji and Pathan... you know, line and length and swing bowlers who don't have much pace. Those guys bowl at medium pace and the ball grips the surface a little and holds up and then moves, making batting very difficult. The fact that they didn't pick Gul immediately gave away that THOSE pitches won't be prepared this time. But I think they SHOULD prepare such tracks and take a risk. Asif and Gul can be a very formidable pair on those type of tracks and Shoaib and Kaneria are almost always dangerous. And Rana is a good swing bowler as well, even though he can go for runs at times.... This should be the pace attack that they should be looking at, for the future. Sami is simply not good enough and I cannot believe that they haven't figured it out yet.

I agree with that. Pakistan basically were looking at Akhtar and Sami's express pace to win matches on placcid wkts.Sami is useless (they still have to figure that out) while its unrealistic to expect one bowler in Akhtar to get 20 wkts on placcid pitches, the result is a disaster for all of us.

Had Pakistan opted for swing condition, then they have a good attack too. Gul,Rana,Yasir Arafat and Mohd Asif are good swing bowlers and they would have troubled the Indian batters, unfortunately Pakistan didn't opted for that as probably their batters didn't fancy their chances on green top wkt.

 

[yohanna]

Three, all this talk of not being able to produce a good wicket because of the weather and lack of enough time, gives things away a bit. You need good weather and time to produce a good batting track. If you dont get enough time you get an 'under-prepared' wicket !

These were NOT under prepared wickets. These were over prepared, over rolled and over 'shaved'.

Yes you need time to grow grass on the wicket but you dont need any time to LEAVE the grass which is there on the wicket.

There was grass on the wicket, there almost always is some on turfs to bind the top, which was then rmoved blade by bloody blade. This TAKES time. And yes it can be done even if the weather is cloudy !

Countries where weather does not provide sunshine before the matches, England is a prime example, end up having MORE bowler friendly wickets not less !!

.

This is something that did cross my mind several times. All the talk about pitches being dead juts coz of weather condition sounded stupid to me.

However i must say that i'm surprised at Inzi/Woolmer's defensive tactics.This Pak team is much much stronger than the one that played India last time around, then why was there a need for such negative approach?? Even in last home series a young and inexperianced Pakistan team lost 2-1 to India, surely this time around they would have done better.

 

[Unattainableguy]

Inzamam clearly thinks that India are likely to be test series winner, thus asking for the dead tracks to make sure tests are drawn, and Pakistan can then simply go on to win the ODIs.

 

[yohanna]

Inzamam clearly thinks that India are likely to be test series winner, thus asking for the dead tracks to make sure tests are drawn, and Pakistan can then simply go on to win the ODIs.

I was actually of the opinion that had Pakistan played with the right attitude, they would probably had edge out India in the test series.