Pakistan vs England ODI series

First topic message reminder :

The ODI series starts today, details of the fixtures in the 4 match series are as follows:
   
   Wed Nov 11 (50 ovs) 15:00 local (11:00 GMT)
   1st ODI - England v Pakistan Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi D/N
 
   Fri Nov 13 (50 ovs) 15:00 local (11:00 GMT)
   2nd ODI - England v Pakistan Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi D/N
   
   Tue Nov 17 (50 ovs) 15:00 local (11:00 GMT)
   3rd ODI - England v Pakistan Sharjah Cricket Stadium D/N
 
   Fri Nov 20 (50 ovs) 15:00 local (11:00 GMT)
   4th ODI - England v Pakistan Dubai International Cricket Stadium D/N

No Vince in either of Mad + Olly's team? Interesting.
I'll keep the Vince bandwagon going, like I have the past 2 years..
haha - he's a class act.

Not for me yet Jimbo - he's first reserve behind Morgan/Root imo.

He's got a huge future tho

Its amazing to think we struggle to find a place for a fit Stokes in the side, and quite happily accept that the two senior seamers can be "rested" for this format. As Simon notes theres still other untried players who could make a case in the future, although perhaps the extended squad is big enough ahead of the world cup now.

Its look a heck of a lot more rosey for England in this format than it has for a long time.

The 3rd T20 is underway. England were going along nicely until some legspin was bowled and they turned to jelly as usual!

Still plenty of time for a recovery as long as Afridi can be prevented from taking a 9-for

CHRIS WOAKES

Moeen and Rashid putting on a clinic here

Why on earth did that guy in the crowd have a Garfield with him?

SUPER SUPER Super SUPER over

SUPER OVER

CHRIS F****** JORDAN! WHAT AN OVER!

You just got wrecked Pakistan

Chris Jordan baffles me

Thought Woakes had a brilliant game, bat and ball.
See my man Vince stop on the boundary saving 2 runs? Exceptional.

Fantastic over from Jordan. Would have gone with Rashid myself, but Jordan was brilliant. Great call from Morgan.

Finally, Vince man of the series

Sir Chris Jordan!

Well what to say. Thought England made a complete hash of it with the ball in the latter parts of the Pakistan innings, but a good couple of final overs to force the super over. Jordan, who had barely hit a yorker in his previous two overs, produced six pretty much perfect ones. England were excellent in the field, which may have made the difference.

Before the super-over, I would have said there's no way Jordan makes the WC squad. Now I'm less sure. England obviously like him as a death option. Vince has almost certainly forced his way in with his performances in these three games, though today I wished at times he'd have backed himself a bit more, he's clearly capable of hitting the big shots. Worth pointing out that twice in two games Woakes has had to bowl a high pressure final over, and has come through well on both occasions. Add in his increasingly assured batting, and you have a very useful player.

Rotation clearly the name of the game for England in this series, with only Rashid and Roy playing all three matches (and Rashid was a spectator in the first one). To manage a 3-0 win in those circumstances is pretty impressive. Morgan mentioned in his post match interview that he himself wasn't sure of England's best XI...

Oh, and have to mention Hafeez, as no one else did. Oops again Well, we as England fans may laugh, but the Pakistani backroom staff must be tearing their hair out.

Didn't see much of today's game but did catch Jordan's super over. Excellent effort.

Pleased for him. I accept he was last in the queue when they were handing out consistency but I've almost been alone here in maintaining there's still some talent in the guy - cliche or not, he can make things happen more than most.

Worth keeping in mind that he lost around two years of his career when at Surrey with back problems (and was often poorly managed by Adams) - thus, even though he's 27 now, he hasn't had as much playing time as many others of the same age and could still develop further.

Well I don't think anyone can claim they called Jordan for that over, but what an over it was!

I think Pakistan really messed up with their choice of batting though. I assume they could have picked Malik who had just been batting, rather than bring two "cold" batsmen to the crease. Maybe something for captains to think about in the future, this was only the 6th ever super over I believe.

Olly wrote:Chris Jordan baffles me

After 8 overs of utter tripe across two matches you could argue he was due a good over. Even then though he was missing his length slightly and delivering low full tosses - but the Pakistanis seemed to panic.

The good news for Jordan is that single over will win him a spot in the T20 WC squad ahead of Plunkett.

I would hope this doesn't book Jordan's place in the squad as I still feel he is not an international quality bowler.

I'd also question if it was a true pressure situation given that the series has already been secured. It was a great over, but made all the more great by the surprise element given how badly he had bowled up to that point!

Well now I haven't been on much lately (very busy) and have seen only a little of the ODIs and almost none of the T20 (the hours are horrible for Melbourne time !)

But _ well done England . Morgan has done well with his generally youthful side ...though I am not yet ready to announce the New Order of England Domination : you'd recall the previous tour of UAE featured England dominating the limited overs matches after being shredded in the Tests ... Pietersen , Cook (!) Finn were all supreme and we thought it might lead somewhere ...but...

This time around though the fact that most of the players are young and fresh does give hope - we shall see.

But on the latest match I thought to raise a point :

Jordan apparently bowled a genuinely "super " over. Now I didn't see it ; but I'm told it was essentially six yorkers - not all perfect , but near enough to achieve a 1/3 over. I am willing to bet Jordan normally doesn't attempt six yorkers in a death over ; but rather mixes slow ball bouncers , wide balls etc in an attempt to confuse the batsman. And it generally doesn't work.

I have seen debate on here around the use of the yorker at the death : opinions of people whose theories I respect (like Mike - who seems to be on leave of absence?) are that this method is a bit old fashioned and not the best : I wonder if this instance (and yes , I am aware it is just a one-off) might cause a rethink ?

The argument against the full delivery is , I think , that if it is a little wrong it is too easily hit for six. The trouble with the alternatives seems to me to be that all of them are too easily hit for four (or six) at least in the majority of cases. It seems to me that concentrating on bowling a particular ball correctly is in many ways easier than trying to produce several different well directed balls in an over under pressure - which is why bowlers so often seem to get it wrong. A good bowler of yorkers (eg Starc) is a huge asset at the end of a limited over game. Not sure Jordan is in that class , but I do think he might be well advised to stick to this plan - at least until it is proved not to work consistently. The yorker is not that hard to get right - just takes a lot of practice ; and I suspect it might still be a worthwhile weapon at the end of these games . Not exclusively , perhaps ; but a lot more than it is currently used .

Thoughts ?

alfie. I would tend to agree that the perfect yorker is still the best ball to bowl at the death, and indeed the go-to ball. I suspect Mike - who's busy with teaching at the moment, so not on here - would agree on that. However, if you get the yorker fractionally wrong, and a good batsman is expecting it, it's easy to hit. Hence why bowlers mix it up more. The key is IMO to be unpredictable. Jordan in the super-over hit pretty much six perfect yorkers, though his line varied: some were wide, some straight, some cramping the batsmen as they backed away. Pakistan also made a horlicks of it by sending out the wrong batsmen for that situation.

Now the perfect yorker can still be hit. If a batsman goes deep in his crease he can get underneath it, or he can scoop it. I've seen Buttler hit perfect yorkers for six over long-off or over the keeper's head. Not easy to do, but not impossible.

Worth pointing out that in Jordan's two death overs in the match itself, he bowled one short ball - to Afridi, so fair enough, but it was misdirected down leg and only Buttler's athleticism stopped it going for four off the glove - and 11 attempted yorkers. He didn't really hit his yorkers properly, and they went for a combined 17. Not bad therefore, but not great, and I suspect against more specialist "late-over hitters" than Pakistan had it would have gone for a lot more.

Overall, I think the yorker can be the go-to ball in certain situations, depending on opposition batsmen for instance, but in general the right approach is still to mix it up so the batsman doesn't get set too easily.

An anecdote Mike likes to tell is of a Yorkshire T20 bowler (whose name escapes me) who had Lloyd and Botham raving about the quality of his yorkers, and bemoaning the fact teams didn't use them more often. In one finals day, he bowled four overs of pretty much inch perfect yorkers, and still went at ten runs per over...

Thanks for your thoughtful response , mfc. I wouldn't quarrel with any of that ; and I certainly don't mean to advocate relying exclusively on this - or any other - delivery ! As you say , mixing things up (to a degree) is the best approach.

What I was actually getting at was that I have had the impression that (England in particular) have in recent years perhaps strayed a little too far down the path of mixing things up at the cost of actually bowling the ball where it will do the most good : could I call it the Dernbach Theory ? Surprising the batsman is one thing ; but if it results in a couple of wides in the over and still concedes a liberal helping of boundaries it doesn't do much good...

Now I may be wrong ; possibly lack of skill rather than too much innovation has been at fault. But it has occurred to me that encouraging bowlers to produce a different ball each delivery might sometimes have had the effect of causing an unacceptable loss of control ; and that - for some bowlers at least - keeping things a little simpler might have produced better results. As with most tactical decisions in cricket , it is of course a balancing act.

Interesting you say Jordan was attempting yorkers in the innings as well ; which suggests the coaching staff have determined that this is a strong skill of his , and therefore a reasonable tactic for him to employ - which is of course in line with my theorising above. If he "didn't quite hit them properly" but conceded only 17 from two at the death I'd suggest that is not too awful for the concluding moments of a t20.

Which is one more point I would make on the yorker : yes it can go wrong ; and a Buttler (or a de Villiers , say) can even get after it when you bowl it right. But to the average player - especially one who hasn't been in long - it generally represents a fair measure of danger against opportunity. In simple terms , a good % ball for the bowler. I'd hate to see it neglected.

I don't think we really disagree on this ; would be interested to hear other opinions...

Hi Alfie, MfC et al,

Yep, I don't think there is really any disagreement here. I don't plan to change that.

I do though feel that in recent years the yorker has had something of a bad and unfair press. I suspect some of this has been a fairly understandable reaction to it being overly hyped by certain lazy pundits; Botham in particular. Botham's continual calling for a yorker to be bowled and citing the example of his former Somerset colleague overlooked at least three things.

1. Garner was a wonderful limited overs bowler.
2. At around 6 foot 8, he was bordering towards a freak of nature (the tallest player at the time to ever have played international cricket).
3. As MfC suggests, a poor yorker or even an overly used ordinary one (and thus expected by the batsman) becomes a weakness rather than a strength.

The last point leads me to Alfie's post where I agree fully that the bowler needs a balanced and varied armoury. All the more better if that can include a yorker. It certainly still has a place in the modern game - especially so on some of the Test match roads we've seen in recent times where the bowler needs to do all he can to take the pitch out of the equation; most brilliant example of which I've ever seen was Michael Holding at a sun drenched Oval in '76 - must be out there on Youtube. However, unless you're a modern day Garner or Holding, use it but don't overuse it!

As for Dernbach, yes, his problem was that he tried to mix things up too much and didn't have a stock ball to fall back upon.