Swann is really the only world class test spinner I've ever seen with England although Monty was fun for a while too.
Been a weakness for years.
Been a weakness for years.
English cricket thread
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For anyone under 40, I would agree with that.
The fact Ahmed is an all rounder I think virtually guarantees that long term he'll be given the chance to be first choice spinner. Especially in home series where the spinner will often have a minimal role to play and having a spinner who can't bat is fairly redundant unless they're top quality. Leach is likeable and the stats don't tell the full story, but he obviously isn't top quality.
Retiring?
If the other option is Dom fecking Bess then Jack Leach has to remain in the side.
Far more likely he’s fallen out with his missus to be honest.
Having watched Ahmed bowl properly now I concur he’s the real deal. You don’t get a 5-er as an 18 year old in your first test if you’re not a good bowler, especially not if you’re a wrist spinner. He spins plenty revs & bowls at a speed which you need to succeed as a wrist spinner in test cricket. And being a leg spinner you always get that extra bounce and variations. He will only get better & better at his age. So even England’s spin options suddenly look much more promising. The Ozzie’s will be scratching their heads.
He’s okay but he’d defo get absolutely hammered on a flattie against a standard club team
It was a bit of a lucky 5 for let's be honest. A Pakistan side playing "hope" cricket, having already lost the series. Just trying to smash it around. Its hard to extrapolate this forward to how he would do against the Aussies etc on flat wickets, or the Indians.
He looks like he's miles off being a consistent test spinner I reckon, which is normal at that age. For a start I think he needs to work on his leggie and getting a bit more on that particular delivery so that the googly can become even more effective.
A real talent though, hopefully he can be moulded into something great.
Never been a big Leach fan. But you know what you're going to get which is why I think they stick with him.
He looks like he's miles off being a consistent test spinner I reckon, which is normal at that age. For a start I think he needs to work on his leggie and getting a bit more on that particular delivery so that the googly can become even more effective.
A real talent though, hopefully he can be moulded into something great.
Never been a big Leach fan. But you know what you're going to get which is why I think they stick with him.
Agree that it's hard to extrapolate and quite a few wickets were from attacking shots. Maybe a couple of wickets to attacking shots is lucky and you can blame the batters inaccuracies, but I think we were seeing the start of a pattern - causing uncertainty in the batters and tricking them into mistakes. There's obviously something about his bowling that can make him difficult to attack, which is a great foundation to have and can snowball in effect. Also suggest that's they're wary about just sitting back and defending against him. But a very small sample size.
That said I'm biased in his favour, I used to bowl a regular googly and loved watching him bowl. More data please.
Just heard Pope being interviewed before start of play - he sounds like a really nice guy and also so respectful of Pakistan and the people. Really impressive.
England win again. Absolutely stunning display and series performance. So much talent missing and with a group not even at in it’s prime yet. Scary!
It will be interesting to see how teams approach playing England, if they try to take them on playing their own brand of Bazball then you would expect more attacking shots than usual, which will either mean fireworks or wickets. Obviously Ahmed was new to the Pakistan batsmen, but they didn't get after him in the way they got after Leach. Will be interesting to see how that pans out in the games before the Ashes.
I doubt we see Ahmed in the test team again next year to be honest.
Congrats to England - Stokes outcaptained Babar across the series.
If Babar was a bit smarter, we would have drawn the first test and won the second (that 3rd umpire decision in the second test still irks me). 3rd test I don’t think we won any session.
Interesting time for England cricket - McCullum and Stokes have dragged this test side standard go be up there with the white ball teams.
Not sure what Pakistan do from here - it’s still a young, new test side. But the batters need to learn how to play an innings. Too many yahoo shots and making a start but not converting it into a big score.
If Babar was a bit smarter, we would have drawn the first test and won the second (that 3rd umpire decision in the second test still irks me). 3rd test I don’t think we won any session.
Interesting time for England cricket - McCullum and Stokes have dragged this test side standard go be up there with the white ball teams.
Not sure what Pakistan do from here - it’s still a young, new test side. But the batters need to learn how to play an innings. Too many yahoo shots and making a start but not converting it into a big score.
Great performance from England but more than anything it's great playing test cricket again in Pakistan. Been a long time coming.
1. Get in some experienced fast bowlers from the domestic circuit (Abbas, Hamza) instead of trying to force in pace bowlers (Rauf, Wasim Jnr). Don't try to deflect by claiming nonsense that there aren't any good pace bowlers in domestic cricket.
2. Let the curators do their job and produce quality test wickets that supported both pace and spin. Statistics from previous matches showed that both types of bowlers were getting wickets and we had a fantastic record. It is interference from the top and management that caused the poor pitch at Rawalpindi and then no support for pace bowlers in the next two.
3. Utilize your all rounders if they are selected (Faheem, Agha Salman). Faheem bowled 3 overs the whole test while Agha bowled just 1. Agha is taking a spot that can be given to a pure batsman so if you want to utilize his spin bowling then atleast use it. If you're not going to use him on wickets made for spin then when?
This should be the lineup:
Imam/Shan
Abdullah
Saud
Babar
Fawad/Usman
Agha/Kamran Ghulam
Rizwan
Faheem
Abrar
Abbas/Naseem
Hamza/M.Ali
Depending on whether they feel the pitch is spinning or not, we can select Nawaz or Nauman for Faheem.
Hurraira is really knocking at the door for the opening spot but would be tough to drop Imam based on house performances.
On 1) - bear in mind Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf were all injured and missed most of the series. I think them 3 coming back will be big (although these pitches didn't offer much). Also, you know my thoughts on Wasim Jnr
On 2) - fully agree.
On 3) - Faheem was pretty useless with the bat, and I don't think his bowling is good enough to justify his inclusion. Especially with the former 3 back. I like Salman Agha - he made some decent scores lower down the order, but didn't see enough of him with the ball. I would do something like...
Imam ul-Haq
Shan Masood
Abdullah Shafique
Babar Azam
Saud Shakeel
Salman Agha
Mohammad Rizwan
Naseem Shah
Abrar Ahmed
Haris Rauf? The one potentially I'd replace as a shoe in for a starter.
Shaheen Afridi
That 11 to me has the potential to be a top test side - but there's a few drawbacks. They score way too slowly, and we could do with a power hitter somewhere (Rizwan should be that guy but he's been horridly out of form).
The overall squad containing the likes of Faheem, Wasim Jnr, Hamza etc.
What are your thoughts on Babar's captaincy?
It's his technique and the amount of revs that makes him exciting. He looks, at least to the naked eye, like he is giving the ball a massive rip and that causes batsman to rush their shots.
I think England will be wary of playing Leech. Australians have tended to pick on England whenever they have gone for a 'holding' spinner and aside from Swann and Panesar, succeeded. Rehan might well be their best option if there's spin on offer, plus he can bat.
I’m excited about him too, I just don’t see where he fits in the strongest team at the moment.
Also we do kinda need to hold off on the batting talk. He could bat in white ball as a youth player, there’s no sign yet that he can do it in red ball at county division 2 level, never mind international. He’s less accomplished with the bat than Jofra, and he’s certainly not shown himself to be an all rounder yet.
Stokes and Baz don’t seem bothered by the hesitation of the past, wouldn’t be shocked at all by Leech playing all 5 games and them backing him.
He scored 122 on his debut for Leicestershire in CC this summer!!!
The 2 ingredients I look for in a wrist spinner to succeed at test level are whether they bowl fast enough and whether they get enough revs on the ball. He ticks both those boxes.
Adil Rashid has ten first class centuries including a 180, I’d not consider him a batter either!
He has a lot of talent and he did impress me, I just don’t want to see us create a situation where it’s impossible for him to live up to what is out on him unless he makes Shane Warne look like Simon Kerrigan. He largely played well but there were plenty of pies in there too.
Rehan needs time for sure. They'll pick and choose their games, I think. Just because he's got a 5 for doesn't mean he'll be a fixture, I think Stokes is smarter than that. They picked this game for a reason and I think that'll be the approach. They're aggressive and positive, yes, but young leggies still need a bit of caution applied.
He's still probably a better 20/20 than test bowler at this stage as I think he's pretty hard to get away in that format and you're always liable to slog a leggie up in the air or miss if you misread the ball. It opens up an interesting opportunity to play two leggies in the short stuff, which is unheard of for England.
He's still probably a better 20/20 than test bowler at this stage as I think he's pretty hard to get away in that format and you're always liable to slog a leggie up in the air or miss if you misread the ball. It opens up an interesting opportunity to play two leggies in the short stuff, which is unheard of for England.
What really impressed me with Ahmed was his temperament. Obviously there’s still lots he can add to his game in terms of his stock leg-break and a flipper etc. There’s 3 things that struck me watching him: 1) that googly is killer; 2) he’s always smiling; 3) he can’t stay still. So much of this game is between the ears and he seems to have a great mentality already, he enjoys the game so much. To effectively go 7-100 off 31.5 overs after starting out 0-37 off 5 overs is very impressive. He’s also fortunate that he’s got a captain who will value the game-breaking nature of a leg spinner and won’t try to deter his attacking instincts. So many spinners in this country get killed by negative captaincy and selection.
The important thing for Ahmed is as he develops his game, he needs to stick to what’s natural and not get pulled into other people’s theories as to what he should do with pace and action and all the rest. Was great to hear him talk about how the Rizwan wicket was a by-product of 2 months of work with Jeetan Patel.
The important thing for Ahmed is as he develops his game, he needs to stick to what’s natural and not get pulled into other people’s theories as to what he should do with pace and action and all the rest. Was great to hear him talk about how the Rizwan wicket was a by-product of 2 months of work with Jeetan Patel.
Agreed.
I think a start would be just working on the consistency and action he gets on his stock leg spinner rather than flippers and all that. Keep it simple. If he's got that, the googly will always be natural for him with that action and it will just become more deadly. I think the speed looks good, the action is his own, nothing wrong with that.
On 1) - bear in mind Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf were all injured and missed most of the series. I think them 3 coming back will be big (although these pitches didn't offer much). Also, you know my thoughts on Wasim Jnr
On 2) - fully agree.
On 3) - Faheem was pretty useless with the bat, and I don't think his bowling is good enough to justify his inclusion. Especially with the former 3 back. I like Salman Agha - he made some decent scores lower down the order, but didn't see enough of him with the ball. I would do something like...
Imam ul-Haq
Shan Masood
Abdullah Shafique
Babar Azam
Saud Shakeel
Salman Agha
Mohammad Rizwan
Naseem Shah
Abrar Ahmed
Haris Rauf? The one potentially I'd replace as a shoe in for a starter.
Shaheen Afridi
That 11 to me has the potential to be a top test side - but there's a few drawbacks. They score way too slowly, and we could do with a power hitter somewhere (Rizwan should be that guy but he's been horridly out of form).
The overall squad containing the likes of Faheem, Wasim Jnr, Hamza etc.
What are your thoughts on Babar's captaincy?
Naseem and Rauf played the first test, though the pitch was horrendous. Rauf shouldn't be in the squad though. Let alone that he barely has any first class experience, he's been run to the ground in other formats as well so it's always an injury risk. When you have guys who have worked for years in the 4 day format and done well, like Abbas and Hamza, it's really sad to see someone like Rauf jump the line purely because we have an obsession with pace. The only reason Abbas and Hamza aren't part of the team is that we only want fast bowlers, no other country thinks like this.
Faheem was doing really well batting wise before he was strangely dropped all together from the squad. He struggled in the last two tests but his record before that was very good, with innings against New Zealand and South Africa. It would be typical for this management to sabotage his progress by dropping him now after bringing him back for only two tests.
The issue since Ramiz has taken over is his insistence that we need to completely change our wickets to be pure spin friendly for non-Asian teams. These pitches should give no movement to fast bowlers off the pitch and the only assistance they will get should be from reverse swing, which is why we have had this recent obsession with wanting only pure pace bowlers since you need pace to be effective with reverse swing, which Hamza and Abbas are not and our hope was Rauf, Jnr would be.
We had the perfect squad set up in the South Africa series that took advantage of the assistance pace and spin were both getting from the pitch before. 5 pure batsman, Rizwan as keeper/batsman, Faheem as the all rounder at 7 and 4 bowlers (Hasan, Nauman, Yasir, Shaheen) of whom 3 could contribute with the bat themselves.
We've thrown that plan out the window with our ridiculous selections and pitch manipulations. You can replace Hasan with Naseem/Abbas and Nauman/Yasir with Abrar and still have a very decent team.
Regarding Babar's captaincy, haven't ever been impressed to be honest, even for white ball cricket. He seems to follow the convention but then abandons plans really quickly and makes weird decisions. We have better captains in Shadab for white ball and Rizwan for red ball but I Babar's captaincy is not the biggest concern for us right now. The chairman is the biggest issue for me (rumours are he's going to be sacked for Sethi soon).
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It’s fair to say it’s too early to judge his batting, but I was pointing out he’s made a century in county cricket after you wrote he had yet to prove anything in the red ball game.
I do think I’ve seen enough of his bowling to see what a talented bowler he is. And being a wrist spinner he should be effective even on pitches which aren’t necessarily spinner friendly, because of the variations & bounce wrist spinners get.
We have a preference for fast bowlers because we always produce world class swing / pace bowlers.
I agree with most of your other points - wasn't Rizwan captain of the test side before? What was the reason it was taken off of him?
Rehan has dropped out of the IPL to play Div 2 cricket for Leicestershire ahead of the Ashes. I hope he does play for them to be honest
Absolutely. He’s obviously been told there’s a spot there if he performs, and I hope he can grab it with both hands.
George Dobell has also said he’s not likely to be named in the squad to tour New Zealand in February. If I was to guess Rehan’s next 6 months I reckon: ILT20 in UAE from January to February, Bangladesh ODI tour in March, county cricket from April and then maybe the Ashes by June. Think it’s the right balance of franchise cricket, exposure to favourable bowling conditions and time to work on his own game. If he was picked up in the IPL auction, as an overseas spinner it’s unlikely he would have seen much game time. Even if the county pitches in April don’t need to him to bowl he can still work on his bowling for the appropriate format.
The feeling at Leicestershire is that he has a future as a top 6 batsmen and frontline spinner at County level (maybe higher). So even on early April tracks he can play in the battling line up as they are shite
The feeling at Leicestershire is that he has a future as a top 6 batsmen and frontline spinner at County level (maybe higher). So even on early April tracks he can play in the battling line up as they are shite
. That’s why I phrased it that way. He’s definitely playing but no idea if he’ll actually bowl. Still better to be in the England with his coaches than in India running drinks.Actually just saw on twitter that he is still in the IPL auction. Guess there must be a bit of back and forth here
Guess there’s an element of Ahmed feeling out who might want to sign him and making his decision based on that. Depending on what franchise he lands at he could land some good coaching and mentors. At this stage of his career, every experience is great.
Very big and exciting news!
Good to see Jofra back! In the grand scheme of things though, the ODI team looks quite stale. Guess it's a World Cup year but there is going to have to be a refresh for next year. Not sure the likes of Roy or Moeen should even be in the team anymore.
Doesn’t help when there’s so much chopping and changing between series due to the schedules. Early punt for the squad for the World Cup:
Bairstow
Duckett/Malan
Root
Brook
Buttler
Livingstone
Curran
Rehan Ahmed/Moeen Ali
Woakes/Wood
Archer/Topley
Rashid
England should be able to find a decent batting line up before the World Cup, their bowling is reliant on everyone staying fit and healthy otherwise it’s a weakness.
Nice to see Archer back. A sight to behold when he's in full flight.
Such a shame we have really struggled with keeping him and Wood fit. For me those two and Robinson makes a formidable attack but it's unlikely we'll see it because they aren't reliable.
Such a shame we have really struggled with keeping him and Wood fit. For me those two and Robinson makes a formidable attack but it's unlikely we'll see it because they aren't reliable.
Test squad for NZ series in February:
Ben Stokes (capt), James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Foakes, Will Jacks, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Olly Stone
Ben Stokes (capt), James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Foakes, Will Jacks, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Olly Stone