Just when the bowling gives us something to smile about just a bit, the batting completely collapses, and it’s just the same old. Another crushing loss on the way.
Cricket
- Thread starter EdWeatherall
- Start date
Nope.
Also Khawaja is great in non-spinning conditions. Not sure how he was ever a free wicket.
He was a free wicket in Australia’s tour of India, wasn’t he? Also wasn’t in great form until this series. Think he had a middling tour of SA and had just a couple good innings during the Ashes too.
I’m not too certain about this Indian side performing well in Australia. Too many aggressive batsmen in the team now: Shaw, Rahul, Pant. That’s great but when Hazlewood is stifling runs from one end while Lyon is attacking from the other, not sure if these guys have the game to survive.
171 aside Khawaja has been largely average against England. Generally had the impression he is great only in Australian conditions but his performance in Dubai is holding Australia's fragile batting.
This is what concerns me. India now has the best pace attack since the 1983 WC but the batsmen really need to step it up.
It's still kinda shocking to me that Pakistan couldn't beat an Aussie side without Smith, Warner, Cummins and Hazelwood at their home.
Every team is shit away from home. Being the most dominant home team in the home dominance era is good enough.
Best way to win in australia. The pitches are going to be flat trackers, so you need to score runs quickly. Bogging up an end will do nothing for you.
BTW, comments on Shaw? Looks like a very backfoot oriented player to me, loads of comparisons with Sachin obviously but his batting style is more like Sehwag.
The feck? Is he trying to audition for Marvel?
wtf Tremlett 
This is terrible even by Pakistan's standards 
4 wickets in 11 min
Lyon has developed into a phenomenal Test bowler. Think he'll get lots of wickets against India in Australia as well. All I can hope for is one of the Indian spinners learning how to take wickets in Australia.
That’s epic even by our standards
My god, Pakistan's fielding and running between the wicket is a fecking disgrace. And somehow this pathetic Australian team is losing to them.
Having thought about this again, I don't see why Azhar was given out as it goes against "spirit of the game" which is the bullshit the English media spun when this happened:
Ian bell is one of the biggest clowns to have ever played the game. Such a typical bell moment.
Disappointing Babar missed out on a century. Surely we’ll win this game...
The difference between the two comes down to the laws on dead ball.
So for the ball to be dead before the umpire has called dead ball either it goes for four, or the umpire considers both teams to consider the ball dead. It's fairly clear the whole of the India team don't consider the ball dead, because they run him out, but it's also fairly clear that a huge chunk of the team did including the fielder who threw it in and most of the others we see in shot wandering off.
It's dozy from Bell and was out by the letter of the law, but the situation only arose because of the fact the fielder acted like it had gone for four. I don't think England would have done the same if the roles were reversed so huge credit to Dhoni for that, but I think all sides would have complained had a batsman been run out as a result of a fielder acting like the ball had gone out of play (not that I'm saying that he was deliberately deceptive). Hell if you think that's bad you should see the instances that lead to heated arguments in club cricket!
In today's one it's clear from the way Starc goes after the ball and throws it back in that he and the Australian players were of the opinion that the ball was very much alive. There was nothing other than Azhar's brainfart that could have led them to believe otherwise.
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The ball is only considered to be dead when the Umpires is satisfied that the whole fielding considered the ball dead, the fact that that they actually threw the ball back and run Bell out was clear evidence that they didn't consider it to be a dead ball.
Ofcourse the good ol English hypocrisy by the fans who and the media(even the moron in above posted video said India appealed perhaps unsportingly) and also the lack of balls in the Indian dressing room led to that farcical calling back of Bell.
Which is just rephrasing what I have already said.
As I said, to the letter of the law the fact two Indian players are still clearly playing means that it is not dead and Bell was out.
The issue is that it was a situation that clearly arose as a result of the fielder's actions, and that a huge chunk of the Indian team thought the ball was dead as well. I don't genuinely believe you think that's how a professional cricketer fields and throws a ball when they think it is in play, and it's a dog move to run someone out in that scenario clearly created by the confused body language of the boundary fielder.
I think we can all agree that if the fielder had been deliberately deceptive (i.e. pretending it had gone out of play when he knew it hadn't) there would be no question that the batsman shouldn't be run out (in fact, it would count as fake fielding and the batting side awarded five runs) so I don't see why we have to be so black and white with it when the fielder was accidentally deceptive and behaving like it had gone for four because he thought it had. In fact, at most levels of cricket that ends up being four runs because the umpires don't have the technology to see that the fielder was mistaken in his belief it had gone for four.
You're right that England may not have done as well as Dhoni did here, as I also said in my original post, but we should criticise teams who play in the wrong spirit (as England sometimes do) not the teams who get it right. Cricket is as poorer game when teams are looking to exploit every little grey area to win, and I don't think we should abandon that because some teams can be holier than thou about it.
No you're suggesting that dismissing Ian Bell was somewhat a grey area when I'm suggesting that there's nothing wrong in doing what the Indian team. It was a major brainfart on the part of Bell when the umpires hadn't given a signal.
Bell was out, no one is disputing that. I'm not suggesting that was a 'grey area'.
My dispute is that Bell situation didn't arise because of a 'brainfart' (although he was dozy) but because of the manner in which the boundary fielder fielded and threw in the ball which led all but two players to begin walking off the pitch thinking the ball had gone for four . It was completely unintentional fake fielding and it's nice to see a captain recognise how the action of his fielder deceived the batsman (again, unintentionally) into thinking the ball was dead.
Now you can be fine with cricket being played how you're advocating and that's valid enough, I think I'm sure you would have found some voices agreeing with you in English cricket as well at the time, but it's also clear that a huge chunk of people going back far beyond this individual incident don't agree with you which is also valid.
At any rate the point is more why the Bell incident was, and is, controversial and the Starc/Azhar Ali one is not; I think we can at least agree that none of the objections raised – whether you think they've valid or not – apply in any way to the one yesterday.
Excellent win. Abbas is quality
Nothing deceiving about what Praveen Kumar does. He, himself, thought it had gone for four and as a result lazily fields the ball - also he's a notoriously poor athlete.
Well yes, that's my point, and as a result most of the players begin to walk off. As I was at pains to make clear I'm not criticising him or accusing him of doing anything other than genuinely believing the ball had gone for four, but as soon as he does that I find it hard to criticise any player (including the India players who begin to walk off and the player who collected the helmet etc...) for responding to that and also thinking the ball was dead.
Excellent win. Abbas is quality
Yep, was a fantastic bowler in the QEA trophies for three years before he was selected for the West Indies series. He, and Fakhar, show that there is plenty of talent in the domestic area and that these guys need to be trusted more. I hate arguments put forward by people that Pakistan has no talent domestically blah blah, and then we just recall old hacks like Hafeez rather than bringing in new players.
Sadaf Hussain is another bowler who has been overlooked for too long, he was Abbas' strike partner for the KRL team in the domestic competition. Both were devasting together (he's left arm). I hope he gets a call up soon because he's deserved it for a very long time.
Abbas driving a stake firmly through the heart of the notion that you need express pace to have an impact in the UAE (and by extension India and Sri Lanka). Pace can break a game open but line, length, accuracy and craft is timeless.
Quite clearly, not all our players believed it had gone for four as shown by the fact that the fielder who knocked the bails off. Earlier you state that Bell's situation isn't a brain fart which I exactly what I disagree with. Watch PK on the boundary again, he has absolutely no idea where the ball is and whether it has gone for four so how can Bell assume this? I remember, at the time, thinking Bell was simply being very arrogant in assuming it had gone for four and tea had been called when neither happened. Normally, in these situations, the fielder on the boundary is asked whether the ball had gone for a boundary and if he doesn't know, it's a question for the third umpire.
Like I said, everything that happened that day was complete and utter bullshit and if the situations were reversed, an India batsman wouldn't have been called back. The English crowd and media played a huge part in Bell wrongfully being given not out and then pushed this obscene narrative of it being against the spirit of the game. My question now is, where the hell was the spirit in Abu Dhabi? Seems like two Asian teams being hard done by which isn't surprising.
Excellent win. Abbas is quality
Does a quality fast bowler coming through the ranks even excite you anymore? I mean, you guys have had a number of bowlers excel early on in the international scene only to fade away. Kind of like us till recently.
Abbas doesn't strike me as someone who will go off the rails. He's not got pace to lose, his action shouldn't cause him injury problems and he won't play shorter format cricket much. He can just work on his craft and go about his business.
Tbh, I'm quickly losing interest in discussing a seven year old incident in this way. It's fairly irrelevant as it is and it's especially tedious when I've had to re-type the same thing four times because people haven't read the post they are replying to properly.
To sum up what I haven't said:
– I never said 'all Indian players believed it had gone for four' I said 'most of the players began to walk off' which is demonstrably true.
– I never said PK knew the ball had gone for four, I'm saying his actions were consistent with a player who believed the ball had gone for four which caused the former (call it arrogance from Bell if you like, but then most of the Indian team are guilty of the same 'arrogance').
– I never said that you would not normally check with the third umpire. I said that in a normal situation (i.e. in the 99.9% of games of cricket played without TV – and remember this series was played with the BCCI refusing to use DRS) this would have been given as a four simply based on the umpire responding (as the players did) to PKs body language. That would be a wrong decision, but that is what players would be used to even playing first class cricket.
– I never said England would have done better. Quite the opposite, I've suggested they wouldn't have. I'd have been disappointed with the England team if they upheld the appeal, but it's a fairly pointless case of whataboutism in relation to the actual incident. What I have suggested is we shouldn't criticise Dhoni for doing the right thing (in my opinion) just because the England team probably wouldn't have.
– I never suggested Bell wasn't out, and I don't think it is in anyway an accurate representation of what anyone thought to suggest there was much of an argument he wasn't by the letter of the law. Almost everyone was in agreement that it was out. The question was about the spirit of the game. You and I aren't the objective arbiters of what is and isn't within the spirit of the game and it's perfectly valid for you to think that it was and for me to think that it wasn't.
What I have said:
– Absolutely none of the circumstances that led to the Bell dismissal being controversial occurred yesterday. Nothing Starc or the Australian fielders did could lead anyone to believe that the ball had gone for four.
Our fielding has been very good lately, don't think you can fault us on that.
I haven't been able to see this series at all but the usual cricket quarters I read online are raving about Abbas.
Is there another test? Would love to see a spell of his. Seen some wickets on YouTube but that's not the right way to judge these kind of bowlers.
Just following the scorecards, it feels like a India Pakistan test series would be very interesting.
Is there another test? Would love to see a spell of his. Seen some wickets on YouTube but that's not the right way to judge these kind of bowlers.
Just following the scorecards, it feels like a India Pakistan test series would be very interesting.
Pathetic team selection. Dropping Kuldeep