Pakistan vs England; 3rd Test - Sunday 1st November to Thursday 5th

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England Team:

Cook, Ali, Bell, root, Taylor, Stokes, Bairstow, Rashid, Broad, TBC, Anderson


Pakistan Team:

TBC

It looks all ends up a Pakistan win now but 2-0 would flatter them somewhat but won't argue they have been the better team in the area that matters most - spin bowling.

If it is to be 2-0 it has not been a calamitous tour but as guildfordbat says England have failed to resolve a number of their issues such as opener slot, who to go with for spin, the wicket keeper slot and also sticking with Bell has proved relatively fruitless.

I thought this comment from Bob Willis tonight had everything:
''We've seen already that Bairstow can't pick Rashid's googly, so how's he going to pick Yasir Shah's?''

I do think that England need to go back to basics with the wicket keeping role. Get the best wicket keeper in and work on his batting later instead of plumping for a jack of all trades and master of none.

CaledonianCraig wrote:I do think that England need to go back to basics with the wicket keeping role. Get the best wicket keeper in and work on his batting later instead of plumping for a jack of all trades and master of none.

Craig
Easy to say, but the question is who is that player? Too late for Chris Read now, and my understanding otherwise is that most of the counties are picking batsmen/keepers.

If England have Stokes and Moeen as part of their best XI, I see no problem with picking a keeper who is only good enough to bat at 8 (and with Wood/Jordan/Plunkett at 9 and Broad at 10 it's still a strong lower order). However, who is the candidate for the spot?

Sam Billings?

Why is it too late for Chris Read - out of interest?

Didn't take long to get worse this morning , alas...

Playing back to the spinners as the pitch keeps lower is always fraught with danger ; Root plays that way , but this time it let him down.

Taylor looked very good against spin in the first innings ; he will need to play a blinder today. Should be a useful further test of his worth.

Oh dear...Taylor gone cheaply now.

England sinking fast. Batting on this fifth day looking very tricky.

Bairstow gone sweeping and missing...

This might not last to lunch.

...and Patel follows immediately.

This won't last to lunch.

The good thing is all you home based England fans won't have had to watch this as it will be over before you get up

CaledonianCraig wrote:I do think that England need to go back to basics with the wicket keeping role. Get the best wicket keeper in and work on his batting later instead of plumping for a jack of all trades and master of none.

I'd argue Buttler is the best glove man personally.

Anyways I think I've seen enough of Jonny Bairstow for a little while. Just not upto it

Olly wrote:

CaledonianCraig wrote:I do think that England need to go back to basics with the wicket keeping role. Get the best wicket keeper in and work on his batting later instead of plumping for a jack of all trades and master of none.

I'd argue Buttler is the best glove man personally.

Anyways I think I've seen enough of Jonny Bairstow for a little while. Just not upto it

Not much of a Bairstow fan , are you Olly ?

I'm not sure there is a great deal between the two B's , to be honest. Neither are in my list of great wicketkeepers , but I'd be happy enough with either keeping in SA , where most of the work will be done standing back. Question of who is going to do a better job with the bat. On recent form I'd suggest Bairstow would be in front . Though runs in the ODIs might come into it yet...

I fancy they'll both travel to SA ; what will happen in the next home summer is another matter.

Cook and Rashid battling it out well...raised the hundred. Makes one wonder what might have been had a couple of chances stuck yesterday and England had found themselves chasing , say , 210.

Water under the bridge now...as is the collapse this morning , alas.

This innings - and arguably the Pakistan second innings - have the look of a team that has just about run out of puff. They competed well , despite the alien conditions - and the loss of all three tosses. But they just didn't have enough left in the tank to take advantage of early gains in this match.
No shame. Pakistan are very tough to beat here.

Rahat cleans up Rashid ; bit of a surprise as the young man had been playing very soundly for his 22.

The end can't be far away...

Cook reaches a well deserved fifty

Fine effort while the rest of them have crumpled around him. He has underlined his reputation in spinning conditions on this trip. One might argue that the injury that handicapped him in Dubai was a significant factor in England's failure to bat out the last innings.

Well I didn't really think we could chase more than about 150 here and so it proves.

I am not going to get at the batting too much for once, as Tuffers said on TMS, there is a collapse in this pitch for someone. And as I will add, the collapse was only going to be against consistent spinners rather than long-hop specialists aka England's spin attack

Fair series result I think, spinners nowhere good enough to threaten in the sub-continent

Lunch 120/7

Great bowling performance from Pakistan this morning

Well, this was a collapse of collapsible collapsibility.

Still a little worried about England for the SA tour, because we are bedding in a largely new side (Rabada on debut, Elgar has less than 20 Tests, van Zyl has five -two of which were rained out. Duminy despite being around for eons, hasn't actually played all that many tests. Even our spin options have about 17 tests between the three of them), but I'd be disappointed if we lost to them

Well Eng going down..... hats off to Cook.....superman of batting on spinning pitches.
as I have remarked earlier...I don't like him....but by sheer force of his runs and his stubborn determination.....he earns respect and admiration.

Well fought Eng through the series...their big moment was robbed by light on D5, T1

KP_fan wrote:
as I have remarked earlier...I don't like him....

Eh? Comes across as pretty inoffensive character. Not the most exciting player, but one to dislike??

Stokes batting at 10 - not sure that is really necessary, or are we eyeing the win here!

The hint's in the name, VTR.
"kp_fan". Cook is a natural enemy

Broads spirited little cameo comes to an end.

Only going to fall short by 130 or so...makes one wonder what might have been possible had Root (or Bell) got "in".

Cook has certainly showed batting is not impossible on this - though it isn't easy !

A little surprised to see Stokes coming out in these circumstances ? Guess he must have wanted to : strikes me as a very tough fellow ; wouldn't want to leave the field other than on his feet.

kingraf wrote:The hint's in the name, VTR.
"kp_fan". Cook is a natural enemy

True! I was giving the benefit of the doubt as all parties including KP himself seem to have moved on. I can imagine KP Fan in 20 years time still sticking pins in effigies of Cook, Strauss and Flower

kingraf wrote:The hint's in the name, VTR.
"kp_fan". Cook is a natural enemy

True. A number of normally rational people seem to have taken a set against Cook on account of KP's "forced retirement "

Odd , I think - as it was Cook , from all accounts , who brought Pietersen back from his first exile . If they eventually weren't able to co-exist , I doubt Cook was to blame.

Back in Sharjah , Cook's long resistance comes to an end ...Malik again !

alfie wrote:The good thing is all you home based England fans won't have had to watch this as it will be over before you get up

On the flip side you'll get an early night.
Unlike me a few months ago staying up in the wee hours...

Oh well. All over now. Stokes out.

p.s.
I like Cook as a person and a player. He is always so graceful, stylish and composed whether winning or losing. The latter is what might infuriate some fans but I think they are being way too harsh on him when that happens.

All over ...

Pakistan take it by 128 runs ...well done them. Their spinners did the job in fine style in this innings.

Think 2-0 slightly overstates the margin between the teams ; but they deserved their win.

Good series, but 2-0 seems a little harsh, but you can't win a series 1.5-0, or whatever. Overall, think day one of this Test and day 5 of the first were the only ones where England definitively the winners.
hard to pick out a man of the series here. Hafeez had a good 96 in the first game, and probably a match turning 150 here. Malik had his double ton and took about ten wickets. Misbah had a good series with the bat. Cook had a superlative series, but the losing side generally doesn't get a man. Shah was leading wicket taker in both wins, but he didn't feel match winning.

Think I'd go with Malik

Also, Shah ends the year one stick short of 50 wickets. Easily the bowler of the year for me

kingraf wrote:... but the losing side generally doesn't get a man (of the match)....

Think I'd go with Malik

Except in rugby of course.

Malik or Hafeez for me. Either would deserve it.

Britain punch above their weight in cycling, swimming, athletics, gymnastics, they have a superstar in the tennis ... but England in teams sports such as cricket, rugby union, football are average to above average with the expectation far greater than the reality.

Ian Bell is still a good player but he is just not particularly good reading spin. County cricket is generally not of a high enough standard so time has to be given for development to international level of players taken from there. I think this was what Boycott was saying.

Well played Pakistan. Well played English seam bowlers.

The cruelty of false hope - the very first words I heard when I listened in this morning after about an hour and a half of play were, ''That's a nice shot from Cook''. It took a few more seconds to discover that his overnight partner and 3 others had already fallen!

I thought Cook spoke well and realistically in his post match interview. I couldn't help but especially think of Rashid when he said, ''Unfortunately, international cricket isn't just about learning. It's about getting results.''

As regulars will know, I always like to give a mention to a supporting act. Thought Sarfraz was excellent behind the stumps and seemed to really ''know'' all Pakistan's bowlers. Hope Jonny and Jos were watching.

Duty281 wrote:I lean towards pessimism here. I can't see England chasing anything above 175 - the turn, the pitch, the psychology of it all. And Pakistan should post a target upwards of 200 from here; barring some unlikely inspiration.

Hafeez has been wonderful. England are surely done.

6/4 that Pakistan win? Yes please.

Thank you bookmakers, you lot truly don't understand cricket!

Excellent by Pakistan; rather weak and insipid by England. 2-0 seems a little harsh, 2-1 perhaps fairer, but Pakistan are certainly the deserved winners.

Apparently England haven't won an away series for three years now (not since beating India in India).

guildfordbat wrote: ''Unfortunately, international cricket isn't just about learning. It's about getting results.''

.

That's about the gist of it. I can't remember who said it, but I remember a comment about the Springboks rugby team where it was said "you don't play Test rugby to become better, you play Test rugby because you are better". This also ties into why I disagreed with Craig re: giving Lyth (or Hales) a series to "bed in"

well yes, and no. If England had options who they felt were quite clearly better than Rashid than certainly they should have played, much as they're not leaving Anderson out to let someone else "bed in". However, the spin cupboard in England at the moment is really bare. There's also the point that Rashid has played plenty of county cricket, and to some extent would probably not improve much by simply carrying on doing so, whereas by playing international cricket (and more so, Test matches), if the potential improvement is there, it should be easier to unlock it.

guildfordbat will talk of Tredwell and/or Batty, who may or may not have done a better job. Personally I'm not convinced, though they may have leaked slightly fewer runs. I think we have to accept that Pakistan actually play spin very well, and know their "home" conditions well, so were at ease.

Personally I was more disappointed in Moeen Ali, who I thought would do well on these pitches, with his tendency to drive the ball into the surface more. However, too numerous bad balls aside, he didn't really do very much to deceive the batsmen. Having thought about this, I wonder if it's down to the lack of drift/dip he gets on the ball? Spin is all very well, but a lot of spinners wickets come from first deceiving batsmen in the air, which Moeen struggled to do.

Overall, it wasn't a dreadful series for England, but one which couldn't fail to heighten the issues we know they have. Cook and Root aside, brittle batting. Lack of a frontline spinner. We already knew that Cook and Root are both very fine batsmen, and that Anderson and, increasingly, Broad, are top bowlers. However, the search for a stable middle-order, an opening partner to Cook, and a frontline spinner, they go on.

Since guildfordbat has beaten me to a shout out for Safraz's support act behind the stumps, I shall give a shout out to the umpires, who have been terrific in this game, and in general throughout the series.

A not-so-great mention though of:

1) The crowds. Tough one, obviously, but always a shame when Test cricket is played in virtually empty grounds. Day-night Tests can't come quickly enough in this respect (certainly in this part of the world).

2) The commentary team. Simply awful, apart from Atherton. Thing is, not so long ago Atherton would have been an average commentator, while here he was a lone shining beacon of something-resembling-insight. Testament possibly to his improvement, but also to how poor the rest were. It was painfully obvious that the Pakistani commentators had never seen Taylor bat for instance, while Lloyd has become a parody of himself.

3) Over-rate. I tried not to mention this, but it annoys me that teams can bowl at 12-13 overs per hour (sometimes not even that) when the game is meandering or they're in danger of losing, and suddenly be bowling 16-17 overs per hour when they're pushing for wins. Eugh. Would be easy-ish to fix with run penalties, but the ICC have clearly decided lost overs aren't important, so...

Absolutely shambolic 2nd innings from Egland. The fact that an injured Stokes managed to outscore pretty much the entire middle order combined just about sums it up.

Far too reliant on Cook and Root to score runs. Bairstow and Stokes are obviously capable but far too inconsistent. Taylor could be a good long-term prospect...too early to tell though.

Bell needs to go, pronto. He is a spent force. Maybe a role as batting coach?

Moeen has proven he is no opener. Move him back to the middle order where he can attack against an older ball and tiring bowlers.

Still reliant on Anderon and Broad as the main wicket takers. Moeen, Rashid & Patel can do a job, but aren't going to strike fear into any opposition. Don't take enough wickets and concede too many runs. We need to unearth the next Swann ASAP.

Overall, as a team, still suffering the same old problem of inconsistency. Can be great one innings, horrible the next...applies to all aspects of the game too.

I suppose it can't be overlooked that we lost all three tosses, that certainly doesn't help things!

One thing I did notice is Mark Ramprakash seems to be batting coach these days?! Perhaps he has passed on to Bell the ability to look technically perfect whilst getting out in disappointing fashion

Computer fault.

Another computer fault!

And for the last time - sorry, folks!

Mad for Chelsea wrote: ...

guildfordbat will talk of Tredwell and/or Batty, who may or may not have done a better job. Personally I'm not convinced, though they may have leaked slightly fewer runs. I think we have to accept that Pakistan actually play spin very well, and know their "home" conditions well, so were at ease.

Personally I was more disappointed in Moeen Ali, who I thought would do well on these pitches, with his tendency to drive the ball into the surface more. However, too numerous bad balls aside, he didn't really do very much to deceive the batsmen. Having thought about this, I wonder if it's down to the lack of drift/dip he gets on the ball? Spin is all very well, but a lot of spinners wickets come from first deceiving batsmen in the air, which Moeen struggled to do.

...

Mfc - yes, I have and yes, I'm sure I will again although, to be fair, never with much enthusiasm and only out of practical necessity. As many of us have said, the current cupboard is near to bare. Neither Tredwell or Batty are the next great thing and they will always be a fair way down on what Swann was. However, they're a couple of canny and experienced professionals who know their game. Admirable though those qualities are, I agree they shouldn't normally be enough to warrant an England Test place. However, sometimes needs must and I thought the last series was one of those times. I fully accept that might not have turned out to be the case and there's no way of proving it either way now. I also share your view about Pakistan's batsmen playing spin very well.

I do though believe my longstanding concerns about Rashid at Test level (it's not as if I've just jumped on the bandwagon) have been shown to have some merit. For all his fighting spirit which I liked and found slightly surprising given some earlier reports, his bowling figures are close to awful (even with a fivefer which I didn't see and which, I guess, may be used on its own to argue against some of my points). 8 series wickets at an average above 69, an economy rate of 4 per over and a strike rate in excess of 102. Whilst I accept he's still raw and will get better, I believe there needs to be a very considerable improvement and, more significantly, change for him to be a valuable Test player. Not only is he too inconsistent at the moment but he is also too slow. I fear that trying to speed up will only bring greater inconsistency to his game - at least for now assuming he tries to do so. Add to that, problems of bowling in non-spinning countries. Plus, as Alfie and I have discussed, he falls very much into the luxury category (at least again for now) if the majority of his bowling is to be concentrated upon the last six or seven in the second innings and is also some way dependent upon the England batsmen having put a sizeable total on the board.

I also agree that Moeen was disappointing although I believe only more so if expectations were set at different levels at the outset of this series. I've mentioned before that he and Rashid are too similar (not styles obviously but net pluses and minuses) to gel together.

Anyway, as always - a game of opinions.  

I think Guildford's having technical issues - or he really is just hammering home the Tredwell point!

Olly wrote:I think Guildford's having technical issues - or he really is just hammering home the Tredwell point!

I certainly am!

Food for thought on the batting lineup.

Ali - Certainly not an opener. Shoehorned into the slot so Rashid could play. A resounding failure for the experiment.
Bell - Seems to have a place by default. Just as well as he no longer merits one on production.
Bairstow - Seen nothing in either spell in the side that suggests hes remotely test standard.

Guildford will love the last 2 paragraphs of this article! And for what its worth I agree. I seem to remember Shaun Udal helping England draw a series in India - seasoned pros can have their uses.....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan-v-england-2015-16/content/story/936675.html

My summary of the tour is as follows.

It was never as bad as a 2-0 loss series and England (with a less experienced side this time) competed far better than the last England side to tour the UAE and lose 3-0. All three tests were closely thought for the majority of them but England had that tendency to chuck in nightmare sessions that killed their chances. Pakistan were the better side by some way in the spin department and that was vital and the batting line-up was that bit more consistent.

England going forward must sort out the opener slot obviously but I doubt Hales is the answer but Ali certainly is not. Bell continues to stumble through one poor series after another with just the odd glimpse of form - the question is how many more chances do England give him? The wicket-keeping slot is also up for debate. If it is (as it appears) a closed shop and between either Buttler and Bairstow then at present I'd give it to Bairstow as he is less out of form with the bat than Buttler and as wicket-keepers they are much of a muchness. The other question mark is over the spin slot. Ali is in a dip in form and in the last test or two he has been ever more expensive than Rashid - 50-50 this one especially as Rashid has shown a bit more steel with the bat.

Hi again guildford.

All valid points. Having analysed a fair bit of Rashid in this series, I think there are two main issues. Forget about the bad balls for a moment (I'm talking about the rank long-hops and full tosses here rather than the balls which are a fraction short, more on that in a minute), nearly all leggies bowl bad balls on occasion. Stuart MacGill used to bowl his fair share, and he averaged mid-20's IIRC.

1) As you said, he bowls too slowly. I think Mike shared this concern also, and certainly I do too. Bowling too slowly means slightly too short balls become easy to hit, going for boundaries rather than singles, and makes it easier for batsmen to get to the pitch when running down the wicket.

I'm not sure this is a big issue if it's recognised (and it should be). Mike pointed out to me once that teaching someone to bowl quicker was fairly easy, as Moeen managed to do it in a very short space of time (a couple of months). He's got a young spinner who bowls too slowly at the moment for senior level, but who they're going to let carrying on bowling at his current pace so that he can dominate junior level for a couple of years first before making the step up. He also had another youg guy who went through the quickening process with no problems. All these examples are of finger spinners, so the process may be different for wrist spinners, I don't know (shall ask Mike when I next talk to him).

2) The second issue I see is his bowling arm being too low. This makes it harder to get the ball to dip/drift, and thus to defeat batsmen in the flight. Again I have no idea if this is easy to fix or not, but suspect it's harder to fix than getting him to bowl faster...

I do maintain that I was more let down by Moeen than Rashid. Yes, based on different expectations, but some I feel are fair enough to hold: Moeen has more experience, and should have been naturally well-suited to those pitches. Also I feel (and this is just a gut feeling) that most of Moeen's wickets came from silly shots, as did most of the chances he created, while Rashid "earned" his wickets more. I also felt Rashid was a little unlucky at times, created a few chances/half-chances which weren't converted. Purely subjective, and possibly influenced partly also by Moeen's poor efforts with the bat, but there you go...

VTR wrote:Guildford will love the last 2 paragraphs of this article! And for what its worth I agree. I seem to remember Shaun Udal helping England draw a series in India - seasoned pros can have their uses.....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan-v-england-2015-16/content/story/936675.html

Bit ironic from Anderson to suggest that though. He spent the first five years of his England career in-and-out of the side, so clearly it took him some time to "learn"

Having said that, it is a pretty good article, though I'm not sure economy rates comparisons between different eras should be over-used.

Thanks, MfC.

I'm surprised - that's a genuine expression of surprise and not a polite way of saying you and Mike are wrong - that teaching someone to bowl quicker is ''fairly easy''.

I would have thought it harder though to get someone like Rashid to change and up his speed than one of Mike's young talents. For all the commentators' talk of Rashid being ''a young man'', he'll be 28 in February. I do wonder how much will be ingrained already and how straightforward change will be for someone of that age.

As always, happy to be proven wrong and continue learning.