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By Will 5 years ago, at the start of November Add your comment below
England won a match they perhaps didn’t deserve to – their batsmen in particular must be delighted with the result. Despite the victory, it’s a useless start to a very important tour.
Tags: england, england-in-pakistan, Rawalpindi |
Why useless? Acclimatisation is fairly important, as is the proverbial kick up the arse this’ll probably give their batsmen.
It’s also set the stage for a fascinating showdown between the new broom Plunkett and the last chance Jimmy Anderson.
Also, the more practice the wicket keeper(s) get on tracks like these, the better, particularly if we play Giles and Udal. Pleased to see Jones rise to the occasion with the gloves, if not the bat.
Useless?
It removed a few cobwebs, well for Trescothink anyway! Give Plunkett a chance to stake a claim for the 4th bowling spot and Collingwood may have nudged himself ahead of Bell for the place in the batting line up. Not the most important match I agree but I’m sure it’ll prove a useful exercise.
I hope England do not think all is well, and think this is just a one-off….
Reminds me of the Aussies who refused to acknowledge there was a problem with their batting/bowling at the start of the Ashes.
Fair enough: useless was the wrong word. I meant “not very good,” but have a raging hangover so not all the words are coming out in the right order today. For now that all is. 
England got soundly beaten by South Africa A at the start of last winter, and before the Ashes most of the batsmen were in terrible form so we probably shouldn’t read too much into it.
Interestingly, Strauss is currently expected to miss the final Test because his wife is due to give birth. Who will open? Will Vaughan move back up the order as a one-off?
Call for Bob Key who is training with the Academy this winter to fill Strauss’s spot?
Anyhow Strauss’s other half is due to give birth the day before the 3rd Test starts. I’ve not had much experience of this but isn’t it hard to predict these things. I suppose they could be having a planned bath a la the Beckham’s. But what will happen if 1 day before the deciding match is due to start, Andrew gets the call to fly back home? If its nature birth he’ll no doubt miss it anyway and more importantly from our selfish cricketing point of view the England team plans will be throw into some disarray!
As the villains used to say on The Adventures of Scooby Doo “If it wasn’t for those meddling kids…..”
I hope, for Ruth’s sake that Andrew isn’t thinking on any of those lines, Dave. I hope they decide to take the whole remaining series off (Chris Cairns did this once when his baby was due).
It was good to see the England batting struggle, but I’m not sure what to make of the wicket (19 wickets in 3 days?) but I do I want to see Yasser in test squad, a Waqaresque 9-for is too much to resist, especially given
1)Sami is doubtful
2)Razzaq is out
3)Shabbir has a new action
4)And Shoaib always carries a question mark(s)
We could do with some more depth. I hope we draft him in as last minute cover.
With a couple of brief exceptions, English batsmen weren’t even in good form when the regained the Ashes. Obviously, it was good enough, and it improved as the tests went on, but really it was the bowlers wasn’t it. Clearly that top order is still a concern – wasn’t it 6 for 30ish again?
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