Pakistan v England, 2nd Test, Dubai, 22-26 October, 2015

"Remember Bannockburn"

Well if we are to miraculously survive, it will be down to these two.

Jimmy A is brave with the bat, and will take the blows in order to survive - but he's no technique to survive long against half decent spin.

25 or so overs to go. Will they all be bowled, or will bad light mean some are lost, as in the last match ?

Maybe it's time to start counting balls, not overs.

< 150 balls to go?

Where is Monty when you really need him?

... and time soon to start querying the delayed declaration?

Growler wrote:Well if we are to miraculously survive, it will be down to these two.

Jimmy A is brave with the bat, and will take the blows in order to survive - but he's no technique to survive long against half decent spin.

25 or so overs to go. Will they all be bowled, or will bad light mean some are lost, as in the last match ?

And also Jimmy A's technique has tailed off. Resorts to repeated dicey reverse sweeps to cover his low confidence.

PeterCS wrote:"Remember Bannockburn"

It was the 700th anniversary last year.

lardbucket wrote:... and time soon to start querying the delayed declaration?

I would. 400 would've been enough.

Cometh the hour, cometh Jimmy

What the f*ck shot was that.

Hard on Rashid. Going against his attacking, adventurous nature was not likely to last for the whole day. Cracked at the last.

But not hard on England, after that Gran Collapso on Day 3, and the scattering of much of the top order in the Second Innings too.

Pakistan outplayed them in just about every aspect of the game, and deserved the win.


At least - I hope - Bayliss and Co won't now fool themselves into picking an unchanged side yet again.

He'd done the hard work, was close to being a hero and don't get me wrong it was an incredible effort.

But what the f*ck shot was that.

No, sorry "Hard on Rashid" was actually my comment on the destiny of the match, and the way he will inevitably blame himself - when he was one of only about three to show any nous, stickability & technique with the bat in the second innings.

I wasn't commenting on your incredulous horror comment!

Brass Monkey wrote:What are you all talking about? Yasir Shah is back. Game over

Meh - 8/180 in the match. Basically, I was wrong.

If, buts and what nots... 6 overs either way in each test and England would've been 1-0 up. Even more surprising given the ballast in the side.

Had expected this series to be a stroll for Pakistan, although not as easy as Australia's tour of the UAE.

Hard luck Rashid, Broad and Wood.... It was tremendous determination shown by the lower order. They deserved a draw...

Agreed 6 overs either way it would have been 1-0 up for England... Bad shot selection by Adil in the end but he should be given the credit for almost achieving a very improbable if not impossible feat of saving this match.....

Around 45 overs consumed between Rashid and Wood.... Amazing...

The defeat doesn't rest solely on Rashid's shot to get out, that's for certain. I'd much more likely blame his buffet bowling. Same with Moeen. We gave up, in the second innings, full stop. Gave up. Lob it up until they want to declare. Combine that with the completely clueless middle order and you'll go some way to explaining why we lost. Same old story, though.... unfavourable conditions, heads drop, just not interested - 'oh well, onto the next game'. Don't see much of a 'brave new England' here.

I'm not one for playing the blame game.

But it was England's fault.

As several of you have sagely commented - our 5,6 and 7 are just not really up to the required standard. They contributed very little to this game in terms of their batting and until we get that sorted then these types of results will continue to occur.

Is there any scope for a different way of introducing batsmen into the England team? Lyth was touted as the best opening bat option from the county scene and thusly promoted to the test team. Whereupon he looked way out of his depth against test level new ball bowling. Could he (or a.n.other opener from county scene) be drafted in to the team to bat at 4, 5 or 6? Would that be a smaller step and adjustment to make? Gooch kicked off his test career as a middle order guy and ended up being pretty handy as a test opener. Our middle order lacks gumption and in Bairstow's case there are myriad technical flaws which are just plain scary - maybe a technician, in the form of an opener, could bring some backbone to the batting and maybe take a bit of the burden away from Cook and Root.

Or maybe not - roll on Jonny and co.

Lindsay no.2 wrote:As several of you have sagely commented - our 5,6 and 7 are just not really up to the required standard. They contributed very little to this game in terms of their batting and until we get that sorted then these types of results will continue to occur.

Is there any scope for a different way of introducing batsmen into the England team? Lyth was touted as the best opening bat option from the county scene and thusly promoted to the test team. Whereupon he looked way out of his depth against test level new ball bowling. Could he (or a.n.other opener from county scene) be drafted in to the team to bat at 4, 5 or 6? Would that be a smaller step and adjustment to make? Gooch kicked off his test career as a middle order guy and ended up being pretty handy as a test opener. Our middle order lacks gumption and in Bairstow's case there are myriad technical flaws which are just plain scary - maybe a technician, in the form of an opener, could bring some backbone to the batting and maybe take a bit of the burden away from Cook and Root.

Or maybe not - roll on Jonny and co.

Or maybe just find an opener who can actually open? Or maybe just stop playing batsmen out of position?

As Cook said, England didn't deserve to get out of jail.

Lindsay no.2 wrote:As several of you have sagely commented - our 5,6 and 7 are just not really up to the required standard. They contributed very little to this game in terms of their batting and until we get that sorted then these types of results will continue to occur.

Is there any scope for a different way of introducing batsmen into the England team? Lyth was touted as the best opening bat option from the county scene and thusly promoted to the test team. Whereupon he looked way out of his depth against test level new ball bowling. Could he (or a.n.other opener from county scene) be drafted in to the team to bat at 4, 5 or 6? Would that be a smaller step and adjustment to make? Gooch kicked off his test career as a middle order guy and ended up being pretty handy as a test opener. Our middle order lacks gumption and in Bairstow's case there are myriad technical flaws which are just plain scary - maybe a technician, in the form of an opener, could bring some backbone to the batting and maybe take a bit of the burden away from Cook and Root.

Or maybe not - roll on Jonny and co.

Perhaps Jason Gillespie and the Yorkshire production line is not all it's made out to be. Lyth, Barstow and Ballance all piled on the runs for Yorkshire, but fell flat on their arses in test cricket. Gillespie said in his Guardian column a few months ago that they didn't actually change anything with Barstow's technique, and they let him figure things out for himself. Well, it shows.

Aw, shame. Was quite engrossed in the Rashid-Wood stand. I ran out of puff when they still had 15 overs to survive and was quite confident they'd do it.

taipan wrote:

Lindsay no.2 wrote:As several of you have sagely commented - our 5,6 and 7 are just not really up to the required standard. They contributed very little to this game in terms of their batting and until we get that sorted then these types of results will continue to occur.

Is there any scope for a different way of introducing batsmen into the England team? Lyth was touted as the best opening bat option from the county scene and thusly promoted to the test team. Whereupon he looked way out of his depth against test level new ball bowling. Could he (or a.n.other opener from county scene) be drafted in to the team to bat at 4, 5 or 6? Would that be a smaller step and adjustment to make? Gooch kicked off his test career as a middle order guy and ended up being pretty handy as a test opener. Our middle order lacks gumption and in Bairstow's case there are myriad technical flaws which are just plain scary - maybe a technician, in the form of an opener, could bring some backbone to the batting and maybe take a bit of the burden away from Cook and Root.

Or maybe not - roll on Jonny and co.

Or maybe just find an opener who can actually open? Or maybe just stop playing batsmen out of position?

Well, since Strauss retired we've theoretically tried to find an opener who can open - and the so called best in the county scene have come up short. So do we just keep spinning the wheel and hope that eventually one of them can hack it (bearing in mind that our presumed best options have failed so we're now looking at weaker individuals) or do we, as I put up for discussion above, maybe approach it in a different vain.

Let's be honest- Apart from Cook, Compton and Carberry are the two best opening batsmen in English cricket, but they've suffered because they are too similar in style to Cook, and an "attacking brand" of cricket is now the order of the day.