Pakistan vs England, 1st Test - Dubai

First topic message reminder :

Early start for this one tomorrow. I hope to catch half hour of play before I head to work.

Bat first is the key on these pitches I feel.

Anyway, thought I'd create the match discussion thread now so that it is there when we wake up. England are playing Test cricket again, I'm going to bed feeling like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Looking forward to the Test and the discussion.

Very topical re: Hanif, DH

Can't see us avoiding defeat in this match now unfortunately, we were so bad against Ajmal that isn't going to change after 1 innings. Our best hope is to have them all out for a lead of less than 150 and try and get a lead of as close to 200 as possible and hope they choke/Swann is inspired. can't see it myself.

Have to say I was very impressed with the 2 Pakistan openers.

Carrotdude,

Have to agree with you there, there's no reason why things will change second time round for the England batsmen. Hafeez for me is key for Pakistan, because Cook, Strauss and Trott are not used to a spinner bowling early on with the new ball, and someone who does a damn good job without doing anything special. Bell got a good ball in the innings, Morgan was unlucky with the sweep shot and Prior as usual was outstanding.

If England can bowl Pakistan out for less than 320-330 then England simply have to get stuck in, play with some confidence against the three spinners, and try to get somewhere near 400 (easier said than done). It's gonna be tough, but as we have seen over the last 18 months or so, England seem to be able to pull it out of the bag. Fingers crossed

In all likeiness Pakistan's lead will be 100-120. Gul is a slogger. Ajmal and Cheema are good old fashioned tailenders.

Pakistan's seamers don't look the most threatening. Gul seems to have lost 15-20 kph since I last saw him bowl. Cheema is an honest trier. Ajmal is the threat. Hafeez is an arm ball bowler, play him like Kumble. Rehman isn't much better. England could easily get 400+

Martyr, good to see you posting here

It'd be a monumental achievement if England were to salvage something from this Test, but they do have an outside chance if they can mop up the tail in the morning. Any partnerships will kill us.

Anyone feeling brave enough to put on a bet that we will win? Not I.

Fists of Fury wrote:Martyr, good to see you posting here

It'd be a monumental achievement if England were to salvage something from this Test, but they do have an outside chance if they can mop up the tail in the morning. Any partnerships will kill us.

Anyone feeling brave enough to put on a bet that we will win? Not I.

Might stick a tenner on England!

I'm back I will have some of that

My Gosh FoF, just been back- reading, why the negativity over this. Eng may lose from this position but do the last eighteen months not tell you anything about this Eng team

Fists,

Cheers, been trying to post more often but been busy recently.

Skyeman,

Completely agree, we were all cursing in that first test match of the ashes last year, and we all know how that finished. This pitch is great for batting. No turn and little seam movement, which just goes to show how well the bowlers performed today. If England can knock over these last three wickets for less than 30 runs they're right in this game. Get a good opening stand and possible over 400, then they are still in this game and could possible win it (I'll have that virtual tenner FOF) Its all about the batters though, the bowlers have got wickets, now the batsmen need to get runs.

Fists is what we call "doing the trebell", a tactic that has shown its worth on many previous occasions

If Pakistan can muster another 50 run's to have a 140-150 lead, this match is still far from over. Since the rare England 1st innings calamity I am sure the coach/management will have constantly reminded the lad's exactly what got them to the position that they are in, in the first place and hopefully they will respond.

I went for a 2-0 England win in this series, one more day will tell me if I was foolish or correct.

Hopefully the latter

that'll do. Broad pitches up, Gul drives, slices it straight to backward point, Pakistan 289/8.

Well one gone , but now Ajmal is scoring freely ...In fact Akmal sounds more likely to get out at the moment with a few play and misses...

Better not let these two add too many more , though it seems this pitch is still pretty friendly for batting.

Partnership getting more than annoying ... got him! Swanny does the trick - or does he? Blowers says no

But yes , he is out

Ironic that the famous hotspot was apparently not working for that one for some reason ...

BCCI will have another one to illustrate why we shouldn't have DRS

biltongbek wrote:No hang on. ..........................................



347.

My final offer. (hopefully I have covered all my bases now)

Perhaps my crystal ball will be correct?

Good 50 for Akmal - well done him

Good first hour for Pakistan really - they have done well in all the early sessions in this match.

Going to need some good batting from England later...

England let it slip a little bit there, the lead reaching almost 150, but still a pretty good effort from the bowlers really. Batsmen, over to you.

Akmal gone after a very good 61, stumped Pryor from Swann, giving Pakistan a 146 run lead at the ends of the first innings.
Should be a fasinating days play, of which i'll get the next 1/2 hour, before off to work.

All out for 338. England a bit lucky there with the 9th wicket to go down.

But now all important England needs to make some good runs.

There will be roughly 250 overs left in the test. England will want to set a target of 250 minimum. This means in my view they need to score close to 400 runs, and at a responsible pace of 3 runs per over. anything quicker will mean taking unecessary risks.

So 400 runs will take 130 overs which will give them plenty of time to bowl out Pakistan.

But the question is can they get to 400?

looks like a poor decision that, you can see the pocket of Strauss's trousers move on the replay...

Everybody seems to agree that the English bowlers have done a good job under the circumstances, in what the experts say is a 400 an innings wicket. It is said that the pitch will deteriorate on days four and five, so it is up to the English batsmen to put up more of a resolve in their second innings so that their bowlers can take advantage of this predicted deterioration.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:looks like a poor decision that, you can see the pocket of Strauss's trousers move on the replay...

Apparently the reason they gave it is because a noise was heard, still a dodgey decision. But then so was Asjimal? decision as well.

They are saying that Strauss took a while to ask for a review (rather than immediately) suggesting that Strauss wasn't certain himself.

you can see a small flick off Strauss's pocket on the replay though, I'm really not convinced he hit that, if it had come off the face of the bat it would have carried through much quicker to Akmal, this one seemed to balloon a bit. Anyone seen a snicko, or don't we have it for this one?

TV commentators apparently saying the sound was when the ball passed the thigh pad. So we have:
- ball ballooning through
- small flick of the trousers
- sound
all suggesting it hit the thigh.
Unfortunately no hotspot anywhere, and obviously the third ump reckoned there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the decision.

They have not shown a snicko thus far.

Vaughan tweets: "That is madness... Hot spot showed nothing on the bat but a White mark on the pocket.. If we are not getting those decisions right...!!"

What an absolute f-ing disgrace.

People can argue about Ajmal being unlucky all they want (which he was), but this is our opening batsmen, not some two bob tail ender.

Really, really costly decision and completely incorrect.

Joke of a decision for Strauss. There is a very tiny hotspot on the thigh but way more conclusive is his pocket rippling as the ball passes. And to say it evens out with the Ajmal dismissal is Love sacks. Where's the 3rd umpire from? Australia. I'm sure that has nothing to do with it...

Cheated but you can't beat us!

DRS can not be blamed though. Once again it is the third umpire and the conclusive/inconclusive decisions.

tigerrobins wrote:

Mad for Chelsea wrote:looks like a poor decision that, you can see the pocket of Strauss's trousers move on the replay...

Apparently the reason they gave it is because a noise was heard, still a dodgey decision. But then so was Asjimal? decision as well.

I was about to say this, they apparently aren't allowed to make decisions based on sound as the 3rd umpire as it isn't 100% accurate. Clearly hit the thigh pad and not the bat, very poor decision.

It isn't DRS, DRS did its job by telling us that he didn't hit it! How the 3rd umpire can then say yes, it is out is beyond a disgrace when there is such clear visual evidence that it hit his thigh.

We needed Strauss, he is a player that can play a long innings once he is set, and we are relying absolutely massively on this current partnership between Cook and Trott now. If one of them falls in the next 30 overs we might as well pack up and go home.

I know Fists, I'm saying the 3rd umpire has made completely the wrong decision, and disregarded what you can and can't use when DRS is being used. If you can't use sound then how can he make a decision based on it

Tell me about it, hampo, absolutely horrible decision and one that has come at completely the wrong time as far as England are concenred. We needed a solid start and a long opening partnership that ate away at the majority of the deficit.

Everything is resting upon Cook and Trott being able to do so now. It will be tough, but if anyone can do it it is those two. Ideally you would want KP to come in when we are in the lead. We can but only hope.

Gents, I understand you are upset, but you need to be positive and look onward to the rest of the match.

Perhaps this is why India are still against the DRS?

The question here is what does DRs ruling say about the evidence required by the third umpire to over rule?

Obviously it is still fallible even when the third umpire can see it is incorrect.

Hotspots and odd one. It can be used to show there definatley WAS contact, what it cant do is conclusivley prove that there WASNT contact. In this case the thrid umpire couldnt see clealrly from the replays that there wasnt contact, but the absence of a hotspot couldnt be used to prove their wasnt. Because of the noise coincident with the ball passing the bat ( he didnt overule the on field decision.
It would in my eyes have been more controversial to have overuled the umpire when there was no evidence that Strauss hadnt nicked it, whereas there was some evidence he had.
Hotspot is of more use for overuleing "not outs" than "outs".
In this case though it sounds like quite a lot of peopel feel it was pretty obvious the sound and any deflection came form a contact with teh trousers, in which case it was a bad call by the thrid umpire. But no worse than the on the field call, so its not like UDRS has caused a problem here.

It isn't UDRS, it is blatant incompetence from both the on field umpire and the 3rd umpire. He was nowhere near hitting it.

Anyway, time to stop before I start smashing my keyboard up. Come on Trotty and Cook, one of your immensely boring partnerships would do just fine.

Cook gone, and with him goes England's hopes. A shocking Test match for us, and we look far from the best side in the world in these conditions.

Cook

If only England had picked a past his best medium fast bowler eh.

Although the general consensus was that Strauss was unlucky to get out (and shouldn't have been called out), his play leading up to that dismissal was not too convincing with him appearing to be struggling with the conditions.

Cook has just been caught.

Left arm spinner on for Pieterson.

Time to put a fiver on a Trott 150 and a Pietersen 300 not out?

What in the blue hell is happening with the batsmen?

I am amazed that England are struggling on such a flat pitch!!! Lack of discipline. I heard the Strauss decision was some what strange given hotspot not showing anything.

Hoping Trott can occupy the crease for a long time.

Cheema pulls up injured, not that it will make much difference. I think we can expect plenty of spin from Pakistan for the rest of the day, anyway.

Pakistan are now one bowler / player light with Cheema off injured with maybe a pulled hamstring.

Legend, think you have got it right there. Lack of discipline. In England, the ball comes on to the bat and they can play all of their favourite scoring shots. Out here, the ball holds up slightly, and rather than adapt and adjust our scoring strokes we seem to try and play in the same way that we do at home, ultimately costing us our wickets.

Very poor stuff, and if they don't work very hard on it between Tests then we can expect a 3-0 thumping out here.

Which is worse though? Strauss getting out unluckly whilst scoring runs or Cook simply waiting for the ball with his name on it?

At leats KP came up with a way of not getting out to the left arm spinner, hand your wicket to the medium fast seamer.

Trott was almost out and Pieterson is out. Hopefully Bell can prove himself on this pitch. He was unlucky to get an excellent ball first ball (the doosra) in his first innings.

Fists of Fury wrote:Time to put a fiver on a Trott 150 and a Pietersen 300 not out?

Thats a fiver you owe me

It pains me to say, but we need a Collingwood out there that can anchor one part of the crease. Prior and Morgan seem to be the only ones capable of attacking effectively. The bowlers did their part yesterday by strangling the run rate. England need a solid day of batting. Try and build a lead of 250 at best. I won't be too harsh just yet because this England team have produced results out of nothing in recent time. The Batsmen really need to string this innings together.

Demon Racer wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:Martyr, good to see you posting here

It'd be a monumental achievement if England were to salvage something from this Test, but they do have an outside chance if they can mop up the tail in the morning. Any partnerships will kill us.

Anyone feeling brave enough to put on a bet that we will win? Not I.

Might stick a tenner on England!

Thats a tenner you owe me

Can we start a cheer system for every England batsman who gets into double figures?