England v Pakistan cricket

[BobHelm]

Pakistan are in England for two Tests.
First kicks off on Thursday 24th May 2018 at Lords.

The England Test side had a dismal tour down under & that resulted in a new appointment of National Selector - Ed Smith. He was quite a surprise choice for the job, but certainly has the credentials. He played professional cricket as a batsman for Kent and Middlesex & did represent the national side on a few occasions before injury cut short his career. He then turned his attention to writing & has had a successful new career as a journalist & non fiction author largely about psychology in sport.

So his first Test side was awaited with interest to see if it would be more of the same, solid and stable (but unsuccessful ) or a radical gamble looking at long term gain for short term pain..

The squad to face Pakistan are:
Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, Dawid Malan, Joe Root (capt), Jonny Bairstow (wk), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Dominic Bess.

Nothing too radical or off the wall there, I feel.
The biggest surprise is that Jos Buttler is brought back after an 18 month absence after he averaged 31 runs. He has not played a first class county game this season, but did have a fairly successful time in the IPL. To be honest that is his forte, rather than Test cricket - which is a completely different beast, or is if you want it to last for 5 days!!
The only other change was enforced, as probable preferred spin option, Jack Leach, injured himself playing for Somerset. I am encouraged that they selected another young Somerset youngster as a replacement - 20 year old Dominic Bess. He has not had much experience, but certainly has talent.
The 'safe' option would have been to have brought back Moeen Ali but I am glad that was resisted. I still think that Ali can get himself back in the team, but as a batsman who can help his side out with a few overs when things are going tough. He is not a dangerous spinner & it is about time that England went looking for that option.
All that being said, I think Bess will be lucky to get on the Lord's ground for anything other than serving drinks. The Lords pitch (like most in England) is seamer friendly at this time of year!!

[Zidane]

Hmmm.....James Vince scores 201 not out in his last innings and is dropped.
Mark Stoneman has failed to reach 30 in his seven first class innings this season and is selected.
Joss Buttler has only played one dayers this year (albeit successfully) and only played two county matches for Lancashire last season,yet is selected as a specialist batsman at no.7.
Root will now have to bat at no.3,which he dislikes,and Malwan will be as high as no.4.
If there is any logic to this team selection it has escaped me.
The only positive is that Moeen Ali isn't selected as the spinner,imo.

[Zidane]

After the shocking performances in Australia and New Zealand no-one should be surprised that England continued in the same vein in the First Test at Lords.....absolutely disgraceful !
Pakistan beat England by nine wickets in first Test at Lord's

First Test, Lord's (day four)
England 184 (Cook 70, Abbas 4-23, Hasan 4-51) & 242 (Root 68, Buttler 67, Amir 4-36, Abbas 4-41)
Pakistan 363 (Babar 68 ret hurt) &66-1
Pakistan won by nine wickets

England succumbed to a miserable nine-wicket defeat by brilliant Pakistan on the fourth day of the first Test at Lord's.
Optimism provided by Jos Buttler and Dom Bess on the third evening was dashed by the eighth delivery of the day, when Buttler was trapped lbw by Mohammad Abbas for 67.
That began a collapse of four wickets for six runs, leaving England 242 all out and Pakistan chasing only 64 to win.
Although James Anderson bowled Azhar Ali in the third over, Haris Sohail and Imam-ul-Haq shared an unbroken stand of 54 that sealed victory 90 minutes into the day.

[GT93]

Hopefully a clean game with no suspicion of "scripting". I trust Chris Cairns and Lou Vincent weren't seen lurking around the ground.

The Al Jazeera documentary should be worth a look.

[BobHelm]

Thank God that I was away..
Only 2 Tests, so maybe go somewhere for the second too...

[BobHelm]

Well the second Test. up North, is a bit more like you expect of an England side at home in early summer.

Pakistan won the toss on a sunlit morning & made the mistake of expecting it to last & so elected to bat.
Stokes was late ruled out injured & so England, for once, gave a youngster, in the shape of 19 year old left arm speedster Sam Curran, a chance. However it was the regular England duo of Broad (3-38) & Anderson (3-43) who wrecked havoc amongst the Pakistani batsmen. They reduced them to 79 for 7 (an England like performance ) before they managed a late rally to finish their innings on 174.
The new England opening partnership did well enough to actually get to 53 before Jennings fell. Cook then blotted his copybook by being out as the day drew to a close for 46.
Root & night watchman Dom Bess will continue, with England 68 runs behind, today. Quite a compliment for the Somerset youngster, Bess, that he was considered responsible enough to go out as the day closed. He had been just about England's only bright spot from the diabolical showing in the first Test though. However it was also one of those English summer days when the hosts had all the best of the weather & the visitors the worst!!

[BobHelm]

Rain delayed the start for a couple of hours.

When the game did start it was the captain, rather than the night watchman who went first.
Indeed, Bess will be disappointed that he went a run before his fifty, but it was a good batting performance by the youngster.
Despite the overcast conditions the Pakistani bowlers could produce none of the swing that their England counterparts managed the day before.
England ticked along nicely without any of their batsmen missing out, or managing a large score.

End of play, 302 for 7, a lead of 128.

[BobHelm]

Lunch on Day 3.

England were bowled out for 363.
Their main man was recalled Jos Buttler who managed a violent top score of 80 not out while battling with the non batsmen in the side - by that I mean the bowlers as most of the English non bowlers seem to fall into that category as well..
It left Pakistan looking to score a greater than their first innings total of 189 to make England bat again.
It has not started too well for them, with Anderson taking a couple of fine wickets & Broad chipping in with a rather fortunate one of his own.
Pakistan are 48 for 3, 141 runs behind with 7 wickets remaining.

[BobHelm]

The hosts wrapped up an innings and 55-run win inside three days at Headingley to draw the two-match series 1-1.

Really just goes to highlight how shocking the performance was in the first Test.
Pakistan are not a good side & on their travels usually appear to be worse than that.
Every England batsman got a start in their innings but only Buttler managed to get over 50. They were up against a bowling side that only displayed 1 bowler with any class & yet all lacked the concentration to capitalise.

On the brighter side.
Bess looks an all round player, although he is certainly not a prodigious spinner of the ball & needs some help there.
Sam Curran offers something different to the seamer attack, although he will never be quick enough to open the bowling.

India later in the year will offer a rather more difficult task I feel!!