Pakistan v South Africa, 1st Test, Dubai, November 12-16, 2010

Geez, this place is on its last legs. A test match is underway and no one has even started a thread.

I see it hasn't taken long for Daryl Harper to make his usual mistake in a test match. I honestly have not seen him umpire a test where he hasn't made an obvious blunder. How he is still umpiring at the top level is beyond me.

From cricinfo-

"Umar Gul to Petersen, no run, appeal for caught-behind, there was certainly a deviation but did he nick it? Short of a good length outside off and moved away to kiss the outside edge as he got back to defend, straight to the keeper and that was out but Daryl Harper didn't think so. A poor decision in the end, that looked out, there was a sound and a clear deviation. The Pakistanis were convinced. Alviro gets a life"

Grouse. More real cricket.

The last couple of weeks have been quite uplifting. It seems that there is more interest in the Shield then there has been for a couple of years, not to mention the tour games England are playing.

India and NZ played a cracker of a test with more in the pipeline today. And now this.

no UDRS?

No, and the ground is almost empty as well.

LOL

"missed stumping, Adnan misses one, that spun quite a bit, sucked him into the drive with that tossed up delivery outside off, Smith went after it, missed, it appeared to just brush the pad and Adnan Akmal failed to collect it cleanly, he had taken a catch that was not given earlier in the day and now this."

The family tradition continues.

LOL

"missed stumping, Adnan misses one, that spun quite a bit, sucked him into the drive with that tossed up delivery outside off, Smith went after it, missed, it appeared to just brush the pad and Adnan Akmal failed to collect it cleanly, he had taken a catch that was not given earlier in the day and now this."

The family tradition continues.

Saffies look like being 0/100+ at lunch.

Stoopid Harper and Akmal jr jr

Bring on the 1 v 2 series!!!

Can't work up much enthusiasm at the moment sadly for any cricket match involving Pakistan.

Aye Bas.

Henry wrote:LOL

"missed stumping, Adnan misses one, that spun quite a bit, sucked him into the drive with that tossed up delivery outside off, Smith went after it, missed, it appeared to just brush the pad and Adnan Akmal failed to collect it cleanly, he had taken a catch that was not given earlier in the day and now this."

The family tradition continues.

Henry - it's usually not worth repeating posts as you did, but in this case it's probably entirely appropriate

Pakistan suffering Akmalaise

smith now with the WR for most hundreds by a captain

FMD.

[Red]He's still fat[/Red]

Indeed he is!

did you get an alert or something?

Red wrote:Indeed he is!

Carn, tell us Red. What really happened to make you hate Smiffy so much? You're amongst tolerant and understanding friends.

A year ago this test series would have me excited about watching it.

Now? CGAF, not even going to watch the highlights, I don't watch WWE so why would I want to watch a match involving Pakistan?

You want to see if South Africa can still choke even when Pakistan are trying to lose for money?

fat jack goes past captain grumpy

Just hope that SA do the rest of the cricket playing world a favour by stuffing Pakistan out of sight.

The One wrote:smith now with the WR for most hundreds by a captain

Safe to say that's one record a Pakistani captain will never hold.

they'll contend strongly though for most captains to make a hundred ...

(* and a hundred million)

A reader comment from cricinfo's bulletin on day 1 of the match. (If you can make your way through the all-caps typing and the poor grammar, it's quite amusing.):

Posted by amir1475 on (November 13 2010, 03:50 AM GMT)
I HAVE A QUESTIONS IS LBW IS NOT ALLOW IN TEST MATCH OR DISABLE IN SOUTHAFRICA INNING lol UMPIRING IS RIDICULUS I THINK PHENOMENA OF NEUTRAL EMPIRES ARE FAIL. ICC SHOULD ALLOW HOME UMPIRES OR TAKE POINTS OF EACH MATCH IF UMPIRE DO BAD DECESIONS THEY WILL THROW OUT FROM ICC PANEL.OTHERWISE THERE IS NO CURE OF BIASNESS LIKE THIS TOTALLY BAD UMPIRING ICC SHOULD CHECK MEDICAL CHECKUP OF UMPIRES EYES AND EARS BEFORE EVERY MATCH OTHERWISE THINGS LIKE THIS CONTINUE.HARPER I THINK U SHOULD JOIN DEAF CLUB BCZ YOUR HEARING POWER LOSS U CANT HEAR SOUNDS

Probably some Pakistani supporter who has forgotten that bias among home umpires, principally in places like Pakistan, was the primary reason for neutral umps. The assumption today is the egregious errors are more to do with incompetence than parochialism, though the Pakistani third umpire who game AB out in one of the ODIs, was hardly disinterested.