Pakistan v England- The post mortem

taipan wrote:What's new. The SA team do the same thing regularly. Of course idiots like Red call it choking.

True, however the main difference was that England's entire batting line up (bar one or two flashes in the pan) were all crap through every one of the three tests!!
Now THAT is worrying ...

Merlin wrote:

taipan wrote:What's new. The SA team do the same thing regularly. Of course idiots like Red call it choking.

True, however the main difference was that England's entire batting line up (bar one or two flashes in the pan) were all crap through every one of the three tests!!
Now THAT is worrying ...

Over confident. Some six months back Dan and I has a minor shitfest about combining the Englan and SA top six. He was adamant that at least 4 should be English.. You don't become poor overnight.

Eric Air Emu wrote:So now England are competent against spin?

No, I suppose I didn't mean that, especially having just said they're rubbish. Yet I didn't mean to originally say they're rubbish, either. England are competent against spin within their comfort zone is what I meant. All last year nobody mentioned anything about spin. Now it's become a problem because we faced spin in the worst conditions to face spin. I guess what I should have said is England are as good as most non-subcontinental teams against spin - i.e. they're not good but that's just the way of it. They'll beat spin up in non-spinning conditions, but the question is HOW are they supposed to be good at playing spin on the sub-continent? HOW?

This 'competent against spin' argument is all well and good to have, except for one of those spinners being a blatant pingin, cheating chucker...

Belf looked just as big a rabbit-in-the-spotlight v Ajmal as he did during his short battles with Warnie.

Chivalry Augustus wrote:Aren't England normally competent against spinners? We're talking about high quality spin on pitches that have not encouraged high-scoring. Neither team made a hefty score in this entire series. I've seen Australia rolled over for under 100 against mediocre spin on pitches suited for it (usually by Harbhajan Singh), and South Africa lost a match to Rangana Herath one Test Match ago. I love this attitude with Englishmen, coveting everybody else when we're actually pretty alright at the minute. The only thing I'd change is the comfort zone that some of these players are in. Realistically, nine or ten of them are the best players we've got. We just have to make them better. That's down to the coaches.

Was that to him or the Durban factor? - they virtually won both other tests by an innings.

You wouldn't expect the English selectors to make any changes to their batting line-up as they appear to be quite conservative. If the Aussie selectors can watch Marsh make 17 runs in seven innings, the pommy failures will certainly be spared.

Anyway still think the pitches weren't as spin-friendly as the scoreboards revealed. As mentioned in another thread, Strauss and Cook played as if they were minefields and it set the tone for the rest of the innings. None of the subsequent batsmen even considered moving their feet, and anchored to the crease and playing back they were always going to be in trouble. You could argue that Monty taking wickets was another pointer to them being so spin-friendly but the Pakistan batting line-up is relatively modest and they've never been great players of spin in the mould of Indian players. Salim Malik played Warne with aplomb as he predicted, but the rest of them used to struggle.

skully wrote:Belf looked just as big a rabbit-in-the-spotlight v Ajmal as he did during his short battles with Warnie.

i think the funniest bit was at the end of the series when ajmal said he didn't even try out his new delivery. he made the entire team sh!t itself expecting something that never came

Is that the legal delivery?

Chivalry Augustus wrote:I remember Ohja rolling Northamptonshire over in one spell last year in a county match, and that's just a reflection on how poor our players are against spin.

Yeah? What this match?

Oh no, that Surrey match. Jeez, I'd totally burnt that one from memory. Think he got 6-8 *shakes head*

time for KP to be shown the door. he was always a bit over rated.

CT wrote:time for KP to be shown the door. he was always a bit over rated.

That's what KZN said.

taipan wrote:
Over confident. Some six months back Dan and I has a minor shitfest about combining the Englan and SA top six. He was adamant that at least 4 should be English.. You don't become poor overnight.

On current form. I said I rated most of SA more, but on current form four should be English.

On current form now, it'd be SA's entire top six.

Brass Monkey wrote:

taipan wrote:
Over confident. Some six months back Dan and I has a minor shitfest about combining the Englan and SA top six. He was adamant that at least 4 should be English.. You don't become poor overnight.

On current form. I said I rated most of SA more, but on current form four should be English.

On current form now, it'd be SA's entire top six.

So? I still think they will be a different proposition in English conditions.

They will be. I'm not doing the whole woe thing like a few of the others. I've said that heads don't need to roll. Morgan needed to go anyway, but never was going to until he failed. Was a matter of time and that's all. If you can't average over 40 in a batting line-up who has been flaying oppo bowlers up the order, you're done for. I think the same thing about Bell as I always have. I'd keep him, but stick him back down at 6. That's all. I recognise that Strauss is pretty shot to ribbons and that Cook is limited. But I think it's doubtful they're going to be squeezed like they were in this series a great deal - I still think 36/0 off 21 overs and 34/1 off 20 overs is a f*cking abominable way to start Test match innings.

Doesn't change the fact that on current form you'd pick the entire SA top six over this shambles.

Think you might find that England in England v the Saffers will be a whole different ball game ... I reckon England will be back to their best ... certainly the best top six playing the seaming and swinging ball in these conditions, and not the monotonous 3 pronged spin (and chucking) attack to fend away.

I reckon the Saffers will come into the series a tad undercooked as they won't have played much 5 day cricket ....

Even contest, I'd say, come July ...

I still think we have a tendency to crumble whatever the bowling is, as long as it's good. But it's doubtful we'll ever bat so timidly, so that's got to work in our favour.

I'm not sure how even the contest will be, but I'm totally certain that the series should've been at least four Tests - so it could be an unequivocal winner. 3-0 to SA then

I'll go 2 - 0 England then ... just to make it interesting!

Merlin wrote:
I reckon the Saffers will come into the series a tad undercooked as they won't have played much 5 day cricket ....

Even contest, I'd say, come July ...

NTR.

We are in NZ for 3 tests and then we have I think 3 warm up games in England.

NSR, Taips.

Not sure about that. Don't think Merlo was around for Red's cooking lessons.

taipan wrote:

Merlin wrote:
I reckon the Saffers will come into the series a tad undercooked as they won't have played much 5 day cricket ....

Even contest, I'd say, come July ...

NTR.

We are in NZ for 3 tests and then we have I think 3 warm up games in England.

What's NTR?!

And did I miss much in Red's cookery class??!!

Nice tits Red.

So I'm presuming that you don't believe it'll be an even contest this coming series!

I think it'll be pretty even.

Merlin wrote:
What's NTR?!

And did I miss much in Red's cookery class??!!

I see Nidge is as reticent as ever.

Basically before and throughout the entire SA/Aus series, Red kept banging on and on and on and on about SA being undercooked because they'd barely played any FC cricket in the last 12 months.