Pakistan v England 2nd Test

First topic message reminder :

England team:
AJ Strauss(c), AN Cook, IJL Trott, KP Pietersen, IR Bell, EJG Morgan, MJ Prior(w), SCJ Broad, GP Swann, JM Anderson, MS Panesar

Pakistan team:
Mohammad Hafeez, Taufeeq Umar, Azhar Ali, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq(c), Asad Shafiq, Adnan Akmal(w), Abdur Rehman, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal, Junaid
Khan


Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat

How do they fix this? Bowling ok but couldn't do enough.. Batting schoolboy.

New coaching for these conditions?

I think it's surprising how poorly we've played the spinners. There doesn't seem to be much graft, a few players getting out to silly shots from what I've watched.

Just negative. If you attacked them it might stop the getting this hold.

We always get it wrong.

eirebilly wrote:Absolutely cracking ball though, that has to be said.

Absolutely. Have to give Pakistan their due - they've made the best of the conditions. Most of England's batsmen have helped in their own demise though.

And as I type, Swann is also out for a duck. At least the misery is almost over. England 71-8.

Wonder if anyone took the Boycott " I'll bet my three houses" challenge?

The sad thing is the bowlers really did work as hard here as in Dubai to set up a reasonable target , and the batsmen haven't fired a shot ...


You'd have thought after the way Broad played in the first innings , someone would have tried to use his feet? Play these guys from the crease in these conditions and it isn't " if " , it's "when"

...and off goes Swann ...

Swann gone

Looks like we're going to set a new record. England's previous lowest Test score against Pakistan is 130. Think we'll beat that comfortably today.

England still have two reviews, wonder if Jimmy or Monty will use one to prolong the pain.

Boycs homeless, overconfident fool deserves it.

So, who gets fired if this is a whitewash series?

trebellbobaggins wrote:Boycs homeless, overconfident fool deserves it.

So, who gets fired if this is a whitewash series?

Dulux

Prior may as well just have a hit and giggle now.

Ah well, nobody died. Might as well look on the bright side.

Oh dear, even i am starting to doubt that England will win this

Don't think anyone gets fired from the coaching staff, Flower and his team have done a great job since taking over, it would however be time too look at players who aren't scoring runs, and haven't for a couple of months.

trebellbobaggins wrote:How do they fix this? Bowling ok but couldn't do enough.. Batting schoolboy.

New coaching for these conditions?

Definitely. While the conditions are great for our bowlers, our players evidently need a lot of batting practice in these conditions, in order to learn how to read and play different types of spin.

Thats why I made my earlier comment about picking teams to suit the conditions. Too many of England's players just aren't comfortable with spin.

Prior gone for 18 and England are now 72-9.

Jimmy A has a huge heave at one and is caught...its all over!

I can only imagine that FoF is sat in a corner somewhere rocking back and forth muttering too himself.

All over.......

Must admit I feared 145 might be tricky , but this has been horrible ... I really started to worry when the opening pair scored at 1.4 an over until they were parted ... just seemed inevitable that wickets were going to fall soon.

Well played Pakistan , (again) but - all out 72 ?

A lot to think about after that ...

robbo277 wrote:Monty to hit the winning runs. #hearditherefirst

Which Test will that be in then, Robbo?

O thank the lord - Monty is out too I've learnt never to expect victory until the victory has arrived with pakistan. Ajmal, Rehman, I salute theeeeeeeeee.

From BBC Live Text:

England's tactic of playing on the back foot to the spinners has come back and punched them in face. This has been abject. And you probably won't believe me but the pitch is not even doing that much. It's turning a bit but most of the demons are in England's heads.

I think that just about sums up how poor England were today.

Yup well played. Series win, eng knocked off the top? Should allow Pakistan to have the title now, they didn't. Just beat us, they showed us to be a poor poor side over there.

Well played Pakistan especially rehman and Ajmal

Bell, Kp and Mogs between them score a combined 0

alfie wrote:Must admit I feared 145 might be tricky , but this has been horrible ... I really started to worry when the opening pair scored at 1.4 an over until they were parted ... just seemed inevitable that wickets were going to fall soon.

Well played Pakistan , (again) but - all out 72 ?

A lot to think about after that ...

Agreed. We were far too negative from the off. Yes, the pitch was turning and caution was needed, but all our players treated it like it was a minefield. Very poor indeed.

Utterly disgusted, absolutely bottle-less, pathetic batting and not much more to say than that.

Commiserations Gents. Thoroughly engaging test, see you for the third.

Ah well, far better side won. Good luck to them as they rise again in cricket.

First time England have lost two in a row since - 2006/7 in Australia? Too early to say goodbye to the number one spot , but they really need to play for some pride in the third Test.

The one thing they must not - and won't - do is to panic and start making a bunch of changes to the team. After Monty's fine bowling here I am happy to see him playing in a 4 bowler attack in these conditions , but the inevitable calls for "five bowlers" as a general rule must be resisted. Pick the right bowling set up for the occasion, as they did here , but the batsmen have to have a rethink about how to play spin.

Is Thorpe interested in a comeback?

Commiserations England fans. I'm in shock too!

Never would have thought this would happen after their showing in first innings.

Call me superstitious but they shouldn't have flashed up that scorecard from 1978 in NZ... bad omen!

Fists of Fury wrote:Utterly disgusted, absolutely bottle-less, pathetic batting and not much more to say than that.

Sounding like me lol.

I'm oddly calm about it, I expected it to be honest. We have show many signs of still being weak and it has been exposed by a superior team, fair play.

Mentally we are children though sadly.

I think this could justifiably be described as a big choke by England.

I've seen the word "choker" bandied about by a lot of idiots, but it feels appropriate here. Lets face it, England were in control for most of this match. They had a lead of 70 from the first innings and restricted Pakistan to a lead of less than 150. Even in spin-friendly conditions, you would think a decent team would be able to chase that down.

Pakistan took our last 5 wickets for 4 runs in 11 balls. Absolutely shocking stat.

I think not only LOTS of batting practice is required, but some serious psychology lessons in learning how to deal with pressure. From this display its clear too many England players don't have the mentality to cope when the opposition starts to get on top.

Don't know about that , dyrewolfe ... they've been pretty resilient over the last couple of years.

Just watched the "highlights" again and what I see is about 6 batsmen playing back and getting pinned on their stumps - or skittled.

Lesson seems obvious...

Yeah I'm not sure it's alot about them being mentally weak, they've been in situations where the opposition has had control and bounced back, it seemed more about poor shot selection than anything else.

The players who where out playing back to spin can get away with that in the UK, but not over there.

I think you need to get shot of Strauss as captain at least. He has his good points but the captain isn't only the leader of the team he IS the team and his frailties are their frailties. Pakistan with a decent team and a solid but unspectacular captain in misbah have overcome a superior side with a little bit of everything that was needed, resolve, patience agression pressure et al. I'm not sure with whom to replace him but I think there is always that sense of frailty to him lurking beneath the fantastic times when he gets it right.

alfie wrote:Don't know about that , dyrewolfe ... they've been pretty resilient over the last couple of years.

Just watched the "highlights" again and what I see is about 6 batsmen playing back and getting pinned on their stumps - or skittled.

Lesson seems obvious...

Well I'm a total novice, but I've watched a fair bit and listened to enough comentary to know you're generally supposed to get forward when playing spin.

Also, with regard to being pretty resilient - they've rarely played in conditions, or on pitches like Abui Dhabi...or against opposition who have relied so heavily on spin bowling.

If Strauss goes then Cook would replace him Shah.

hampo171 wrote:Yeah I'm not sure it's alot about them being mentally weak, they've been in situations where the opposition has had control and bounced back, it seemed more about poor shot selection than anything else.

The players who where out playing back to spin can get away with that in the UK, but not over there.

My point exactly. They're fine playing in conditions they're comfortable with, but can't seem to deal with situations when the opposition are clearly better adapted.

Even without that, if they're not prone to mental collapses, how do you explain the fact they racked up over 300 in their first innings, yet managed to collapse like that in the second? Yes the pitch will have deteriorated...but from all accounts it wasn't that bad.

Commiserations boys, but this is not the type of performance you would expect from the number 1 team in the world.

Having 4 batsmen in the top ten rankings and failing badly in two test in succession is not acceptable.

Yes dyre, but that's what I mean , mental weakness in general would not have allowed fightbacks like Brisbane 2010 , Lords' 2010 ... even one of last year's India Tests...

In alien conditions , a big failure yes , but surely due to , as you say . the fact that they just aren't used to playing in these conditions : a bad game plan rather than them lacking bottle.

At least that's what I think. I agree it will be a massive task to come back next week though...

Has cook captained before? Only recently got back into cricket after daughters birth forced me to sit up all night having nothing to watch except boxing and cricket - how good is he?

Amazing test. It would be too easy for this Aussie to take a cheap shot at the poms so I'll resist.

What I will say is this result underlines the world record unbeaten (26) and consecutive Test victories (16) by the Aussies and just how remarkable those runs were.

Getting to the top of the world rankings is a feat, staying there is the real battle. Well done Pakistan, the 3rd Test should be a cracker.

alfie wrote:Yes dyre, but that's what I mean , mental weakness in general would not have allowed fightbacks like Brisbane 2010 , Lords' 2010 ... even one of last year's India Tests...

In alien conditions , a big failure yes , but surely due to , as you say . the fact that they just aren't used to playing in these conditions : a bad game plan rather than them lacking bottle.

At least that's what I think. I agree it will be a massive task to come back next week though...

Agree with most of that, but I have to say, the fact so many players were out lbw or caught playing poor strokes, smacks of a team panicking under pressure and unwilling to try and attack the bowling (at least not intelligently).

The only player to make any kind of score was Strauss...and even he should have been out a lot earlier.

I'd say thats the distinction between good players and great players. Even when the going is tough, great players find the mental reserves to dig in and fight. What we saw today was capitulation. Credit to Pakistan for playing to their strengths and making the most of the conditions, turning what looked like certain defeat into a victory (while England did the opposite).

slaterslc wrote:Amazing test. It would be too easy for this Aussie to take a cheap shot at the poms so I'll resist.

What I will say is this result underlines the world record unbeaten (26) and consecutive Test victories (16) by the Aussies and just how remarkable those runs were.

Getting to the top of the world rankings is a feat, staying there is the real battle. Well done Pakistan, the 3rd Test should be a cracker.

Going to return those congratulations for your utter decimation of India. A lot of flak from the indian fans over the last few years had slowly but surely faded away in recent times and this I think will shut them up. An image of a silver platter and an apple come to mind.

biltongbek wrote:Commiserations boys, but this is not the type of performance you would expect from the number 1 team in the world.

Having 4 batsmen in the top ten rankings and failing badly in two test in succession is not acceptable.

That was the sort of choke we come to expect from the Saffers

Absolutely awful by our batsmen. Can't blame the tail-enders for failing to save the match (that's not their job, even if Broad and Swann can bat a bit, and they did THEIR job with some high quality bowling and pretty much all the runs in the first innings) but that upper-middle order collapse is ridiculous. I cannot believe we lost that, we really need a proper player of spin and to pick batsmen according to the conditions, just like one does with bowlers

Feel really sorry for our bowlers, they really are terrific, but the batting has been totally unacceptable, completely clueless in their technique, and completely bottled it.

i've been saying for a while that i am really concerned about what the coaches are doing to address this issue with playing spin

its been obvious for a while that we are vulnerable to spin and if anything its getting worse rather than better. i get the impression that they are being told to play everything off the back foot and play the ball as late as possible but all thats doing is meaning they are too often getting cramped for room and letting the ball get onto their pads with no ability to get their bat into play

its like gooch is trying to get them to play spin the way he played spin rather then improve the players own natural method. we have guys in that top order who used to be good if not very good players of spin but in the last two tests they look like they dont have a clue what they are doing and are thinking so much about technique they are getting themselves tied in knots trying to play.

in addition the mental side of their approach has been shocking, they are going out there looking like they are terrified of getting out and just trying to survive rather than looking to score runs. this is leading to too many half-hearted shots and non-committal footwork which is just asking for trouble. playing so defensively just allows the bowler and the fielding captain to completely dictate play and sooner or later you get a delivery with your name on it. and if all you have to show is a handful of runs after facing 40-50 deliveries when that happens we see a collapse like we saw today.

2 words

utter shambles

A genuinely dismal performance. Batsmen jostling to see who could get back in the dressing room first....

Fists of Fury wrote:

biltongbek wrote:Commiserations boys, but this is not the type of performance you would expect from the number 1 team in the world.

Having 4 batsmen in the top ten rankings and failing badly in two test in succession is not acceptable.

That was the sort of choke we come to expect from the Saffers

sorry mate, we only choke in knockout cricket.