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.

Splendid quadruple 10 for Trott, closing in on Laras record here

4 more to the England!

And Mrogans 10 up too. These two are putting in an historic stand here.

And the dream has died

That man Zaltzman again: "STAT ALERT: This is the 5th worst match performance by England's first 4 wickets since the First World War."

How many test runs has Zaltzman scored I wonder? What a trawler!

Morgs gone, along with my hopes.

If we make Pakistan bat again, I'm counting it as a victory

Don't worry lads, we got Matty Prior in next. I rate him as a better batsman than Morgan. I love Matty Prior! Good time for this song as well:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXsmGSnq3lE

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

Duty281 wrote:Think I've got this right, Strauss has only hit TWO centuries since the Ashes 2009.

Yep averages about 31 since 2010, i posted something on this in the laxman topic. Its a prolonged slump.

So he's only in the team because he's captain basically.

That and they keep winning despite his poor run, they always show loyalty to batsmane whove done a job ion the past, hes south african, and there isnt really anyone challenging as an opener. Carberry was only really ever a "well there has top be someone to pressure Cook" option, Roy and Root are in teh Lions but both young and raw. Its odd really, youd expect county cricket to chuck up plenty of opening batsmen as all playerrsd have to face swing bolwing on a regular basis but England havent elevated anyone to standard in the last few years.

I'd love to see Paul Horton getting a chance (my lancs biased coming out here) always scores runs and has a great temperment.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:If we make Pakistan bat again, I'm counting it as a victory

If we make it to Day 4, I'm counting it as a victory!

Flip sake!!!!

I hope this is a one off for England during this series!!

Duty281 wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:If we make Pakistan bat again, I'm counting it as a victory

If we make it to Day 4, I'm counting it as a victory!

Plenty of ways for England to win then.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Hoggy_Bear wrote:If we make Pakistan bat again, I'm counting it as a victory

If we make it to Day 4, I'm counting it as a victory!

Plenty of ways for England to win then.

Getting to tea is a small victory as well - it didn't look on at one stage!

Targets now are avoiding the innings defeat and getting to the end of today.

Anything more than that and we will be talking about this match with the reverence usually applied only to Headingley 81

dummy_half wrote:Targets now are avoiding the innings defeat and getting to the end of today.

Anything more than that and we will be talking about this match with the reverence usually applied only to Headingley 81

Wonder if they've got a confectionary stall there for Trotty to smash the ball into?

It will be interesting to see if Trott can bat through the whole innings without getting out. Trott - Prior seem to be the two players that have coped with the conditions. Be interesting to see if Prior can get a fifty in the second innings.

England have truly been humbled. The most pessimistic will hope that Trott and Prior could hit centuries and the tail add 50+

Setting Pakistan 150 on a pitch now favouring the seam, England could still produce a monumental result. All we need is for Trott and Prior to bat until stumps.

Bresnan has been a big miss. I am sure on a flat pitch he could've got something from the wicket alla Bangladesh for example.

Just come back from an evening at the pictures and greeted by this scorecard ...

... rather glad to have spent a couple of hours watching a movie and not the cricket , I think.

What on earth has got into England's top order? Apparently can't play (non-spinning) spin bowling , can't play decent medium fast ... I do hope this is just a "Perth" and they'll be back to normal next week...

Where's Monty Panesar when you need him? He did an amazing rearguard against the Aussies in '09!

legendkillar wrote:England have truly been humbled. The most pessimistic will hope that Trott and Prior could hit centuries and the tail add 50+

Setting Pakistan 150 on a pitch now favouring the seam, England could still produce a monumental result. All we need is for Trott and Prior to bat until stumps.

Bresnan has been a big miss. I am sure on a flat pitch he could've got something from the wicket alla Bangladesh for example.

Still need another 220 for that.

Duty281 wrote:

legendkillar wrote:England have truly been humbled. The most pessimistic will hope that Trott and Prior could hit centuries and the tail add 50+

Setting Pakistan 150 on a pitch now favouring the seam, England could still produce a monumental result. All we need is for Trott and Prior to bat until stumps.

Bresnan has been a big miss. I am sure on a flat pitch he could've got something from the wicket alla Bangladesh for example.

Still need another 220 for that.

Hence the wishful maths.

My view, for which I have received a lot of flak for here, is that England didn't adequately prepare for the conditions and for the challenge. I took the fact that they didn't choose Panesar, despite his eight wickets in the warm up match, as a sign of this. Ladies and gentlemen we shall agree to disagree on this matter.

I also took the drubbing to India in India in the one-day series as another sign of this, despite many saying that it was an irrelevant mickey-mouse tournament.

Flowing with optimisim still then, gents? Mine evaporated with the loss of Morgan.

As someone said above, I really do hope this is just a one off bad performance. That I could accept, and we have got ourselves out as opposed to getting out to great bowling, so there may be some hope.

The big concern is our technique against the spin though, and our poor shot selection (I mentioned earlier that we almost try and force the same strokes we do in England when the ball is coming on nicely). A lot is to be learnt from the way that Trott is playing here. If we bounce back then I can forgive them this performance, but more of the same in the 2nd Test and we can safely say that we do not deserve to be the number 1 side in the world at the moment.

I think it's a case of poor batting preparation - we haven't batted abroad in a test for over a year. Luckily, our bowlers seemed to have prepared well. Come on England!

Hopefully, by the end of this session, we'll have a small lead of about 10 for only 5 or 6 down. It would give us a foothold for tomorrow. Do Pakistan have the killer instinct?

Nore,

The point is that Panessar would have made no difference at all to the result here. The battings been the problem, the bowlers did a job. Id maybe argue that he couldve been included over Swann but there was no way taht was going to happen. The balance of a side with him in and no Bresnan would be horrible and flawed in just as many ways as this one is.

As for preperation, possibly. But all the batsmen had two games out here plus a couple of weeks, and the previous (ODI) tour was to India where most of them played.

Theres still no excuse for being this rusty and off. England side always struggle on these kind of pitches, unless they were spending months out here and developing their game accordingly it would be no different.
Fullstop England struggle with flat pitches against sides who are used to playing on them and against large amounts of slow bowling. Its partly a pyschological thing too, they seem to get in a tizz and stressed by it because its not what they are used to. Even trying to do the right things they are affected by the concious effort to do so, its not coming naturaly and without fear as they tend to play in more familiar comfortable conditions.

Monty Panessar wont change that, but at least well have a lot more lbw appeals.

Didn't think you had any optimism to start with , Fists You pretty much called this on day one ... and it seems you will be proved correct, alas.

Look I know England have had trouble with playing quality spin , and most of us (I think) were expecting some struggles in unfamiliar conditions , but these two batting performances seem to owe more to minds not quite focused than any technical deficiencies. Why I cannot say , but (assuming this one is lost) it will be a good test of their resolve to see how they come back for the second match.

Agree with PSW the Monty thing is a complete red herring - it is the batting that needs fixing ... get a decent score and whatever combination of bowlers England choose will probably do the job.

Its probably a fix anyway, as we know corruption is rife in English cricket

With regards to Monty P, the batting is an issue not the bowling. Panesar instead of Tremlett would have just equalled more runs conceded.

How can England improve their technique in these types of conditions. They have a very good bowling line up for English type conditions, and the batting is also quite good for these conditions. England need to retain that skill set but try to develop the skill sets needed for these overseas conditions. Perhaps they need to look to see how other teams in the past have managed it. It just might be that England are just not good enough for these conditions.

Oh great, Abu Dhabi (next test) is even flatter than Dubai.

Okay so batting "mentality" is being raised as the main cause of the present situation, with aspects of technical deficiency (e.g Bells inability to pick up the doosra, and Pietersens weakness to left arm spin)

Bell's been traumatised by spin ever since he met a certain Shane Warne in '05.

alfie wrote:Didn't think you had any optimism to start with , Fists You pretty much called this on day one ... and it seems you will be proved correct, alas.

Look I know England have had trouble with playing quality spin , and most of us (I think) were expecting some struggles in unfamiliar conditions , but these two batting performances seem to owe more to minds not quite focused than any technical deficiencies. Why I cannot say , but (assuming this one is lost) it will be a good test of their resolve to see how they come back for the second match.

Agree with PSW the Monty thing is a complete red herring - it is the batting that needs fixing ... get a decent score and whatever combination of bowlers England choose will probably do the job.

I rallied Alfie, in the face of our adversity, but it swiftly evaporated once more.

Yeah, I did call it but I won't be smug, I'm too disappointed for that

Also don't forget Pakistan have had two Test series since October against SL in the UAE and also Bangladesh in BD... so they were nicely warmed up for this one.

They, like most good sides, are a very confident side once they get a roll on and are not known for throwing in the towel when the odds look to be against them. As for motivation; well they also would have been jumping out of their skins for the opportunity to do better in this series.

Ah well Trott gone.
Definite shades of Headingly '81. England in disarray, our Boycottesque batsman out, and a tall, blonde haired left-hander comes in to join a hard hitting all-rounder.
Here we go!!

40.4 Umar Gul to Trott, OUT, 131.8 kph
IJL Trott c †Adnan Akmal b Umar Gul 49 (111b 6x4 0x6) SR: 44.14

Sounds like Hawkeye had him plumb last over too, but Pakistan didn't review the ump's call as it looked legside to the naked eye

Trotter falls 1 short of his half century, a shame after a very good innings. He certainly isn't one of the batsmen with issues.

By the way, how have we gifted Umar Gul 4 wickets? He has barely bowled a dangerous delivery all day - the play and miss to Prior being his best. Goes to show how we have thrown our wickets away, it's so disappointing.

So just how bad are our batsman? Is it lack of composure, is it lack of practise or is it underestimating the Pakistani bowlers?

Strauss, Cook, Bell, KP and Mogs have all been rubbish. KP, Cook and Mogs in particular (Bell just escapes that group by virtue of getting an unplayable ball first up in the first innings).

Can Prior save us again?

There is F all chance that we will win this match, and I can't see it being any better in the next match. Although I guess I can take some solitude in the fact that I said we would struggle against Pakistan...

Gregers wrote:

Can Prior save us again?

No

Linebreaker makes a good point , much credit is due to Pakistan who have (A) Undeniably played very well here , and (B) Appear to have put together a real "team" , who have gained a bit of confidence from recent success and seem to be all in it together...perhaps getting the "fixers" out has been the making of them.

The manner of England's fall from grace is certainly disappointing , but we should not be so ungracious as to overlook Pakistan's fine play.

I haven't seen the wickets today, I have Sky+ it though. Lot's of frustration on the board. Let's just see where we are after the series before we start calling for heads of players such as KP or Strauss. I mean christ we just made number 1 in the world, why would you want to dispose of the captain right away?

42.4 Umar Gul to Swann, OUT
GP Swann lbw b Umar Gul 0 (7b 0x4 0x6) SR: 0.00

88/8

Edit, fooled by Cricinfo being over eager

42.4 Umar Gul to Swann, 1 no ball, 131.0 kph, Gul has five! A quick full ball on off stump that Swann is too late on, hit on the knee roll and up goes the finger. But a no-ball!

Gul has 5 wickets, and has bowled 1 good ball all day - that sums up just how badly we have batted.

Embarassing stuff against an average Pakistan side.

Ha, a no ball! The real Umar Gul has stood up.

One thing I will say. The bowling changes that Pakistan have called in this match have been perfect.

Swann recalled
Is that the turning point for England?

Centuries form these two and we are back on top, this is clearly a lethal pitch Pakistan will be lucky to make 20 on it

legendkillar wrote:I haven't seen the wickets today, I have Sky+ it though. Lot's of frustration on the board. Let's just see where we are after the series before we start calling for heads of players such as KP or Strauss. I mean christ we just made number 1 in the world, why would you want to dispose of the captain right away?

Oh come on , legend

Wouldn't be a proper internet board if there weren't calls for several heads after any defeat


... or even before it.

PS : Gregers would want KP's head even if England had won