Could see it coming all through the Root and Duckett partnership. It's doing an awful lot now.
English cricket thread
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
4-14
These lads never fail to entertain
These lads never fail to entertain
Yes this is quickly looking like a win the toss - win the game pitch.
Yeah, I think so. Maybe Pakistan will make it look easier in their second innings and shut me up but my instinct right now is definitely to start moaning a bit.
Wouldn't be an England in Asia test series unless we had a moan about pitch prep / conditions mate. Let's get warmed up.
England's only chance of winning was to get a big lead, this pitch will be impossible to chase anything on.
Good effort from Smith and Carse to survive that last 25 minutes.
Feels like England lost one to many in that mini collapse - if we had Stokes and Smith tomorrow we could have chanced our arm.
Now it needs a minor miracle, chasing on a day 8/9 wicket...
Feels like England lost one to many in that mini collapse - if we had Stokes and Smith tomorrow we could have chanced our arm.
Now it needs a minor miracle, chasing on a day 8/9 wicket...
I think it’s fair. Definitely a tough pitch to bat on, but we genuinely may have lost the game in 45 minutes there
I remember someone on Sky recently mentioned that Dinesh Karthik said Carse was the best player of spin when he was coaching the Lions last year. It's a big ask but if they can keep the deficit to 50 or so there's still a chance if Pakistan have another poor 2nd innings.
Even at 180 odd for 2 it looked liked it'd be Pakistan's game.
You called it and I think anyone watching felt like if one went - many could.
Ducket is on Sky now saying like he felt that was a tough pitch to bat on from ball one.
England will have a slog tomorrow morning and see if they can make this a one innings chase.
Was the only way Pakistan'd be competitive. Win lose, it's a very poor Pakistan side.
Should be nothing to moan about, England knew how the pitch would be. It's their job to adapt to away conditions and their own fault for collapsing when all they needed was to see out the last 10 overs of the day.
Technically playing on a day 7 pitch so it would be but still disappointing with that collapse at the end.
I think that's a very simplistic take. It's a winning toss pitch, England would likely be pissing this v a poor Pakistan side if they had won it.
But that's Cricket, Pakistan may have had the luck here and bowled well this evening to capitalise on it. I didn't attribute much blame to the batsmen for the mini collapse.
Brooks shot wasn't great but it ripped, Duckett played like that to make 100+. Stokes got a jumper etc etc.
England have played on raging turners before against India. They could have bowled alot better to keep the runs down, Pakistan scored quite a few with the tail. It's never as simple as winning the toss and winning (although clearly an advantage on this pitch). England still could have restricted Pakistan to a lower total and gained a lead with their 1st innings score.
pakistan neck and neck with india when it comes to preparing ropey decks. you can sense the burning rivalry there.
Just catching up to the day’s play. Always tricky after losing the toss on a pitch like this, one thing I do think England need to work on is getting to the pitch of the ball when playing spin, their approach is dominated by sweeping and playing off the back foot which will work most of the time but gets found out when the bounce is variable and it really starts to turn. Get down the pitch and get to the ball and the pitch is out of the equation.
It has to be said though that using the feet to spin is a bit of a dying art in general.
It has to be said though that using the feet to spin is a bit of a dying art in general.
Poor shot from Carse set the tone for a disastrous morning for England. If the game wasn't already all but over, it is now
Much better pitch in terms of entertainment value than the first one, hang on it’s the same pitch. 
Why didn’t they produce this for the first test? It’s England’s Achilles heel spinning pitches.
Why didn’t they produce this for the first test? It’s England’s Achilles heel spinning pitches.
211-2 to 291 all out with a 29 run last wicket partnership, the pitch is doing a lot more but they’ve squandered Duckett’s innings.
In these conditions the first innings is the big one and England constantly keep collapsing from great positions. You just can't win that way
The Bazball conundrum, they get in good positions because they are positive and then squander them because they lack the subtlety to manoeuvre through tricky situations. In the end they probably score more than they would with a more usual English approach but if they really want to crack playing spin they need to learn how to use their feet rather than rely on sweeping and playing from the crease. A technical flaw rather than a mindset flaw I think.
I don’t think England will ever be great in these type of tricky spinning conditions, these type of conditions in a test match are too alien to what their used to. Same goes for teams like Australia, NZ and SA.
I don’t think you criticize England too much, winning the toss was crucial as the pitch is finally deteriorating. There’s some technical flaws with English batters playing spin, Brook’s dismissal was example. But they still managed to get a decent score on a tricky pitch.
There is so much happening here, if you keep it in the right areas wickets will come.
Don’t want to be chasing more than 160-170 and even that might be tricky. I’d say Pakistan are still big favourites unless they absolutely implode. Which can happen especially on this pitch.
The more runs Pakistan get the more convinced I am England will chase this easily
I feel like this England side can't be judged against previous expectations of "you can't chase more than 200 on a turning pitch like this". Historically those judgements are based on scoring at 2-2.5 an over meaning you have to face a lot of balls on that turning deck to chase. If you go at 5 an over, you face half the number of balls. Yes there's more risk per ball in going at 5, but their gamble is that is more than offset by facing half the number of balls. We've already seen this England side execute insane chases. Not saying they will, I just think the historical trends kind of can't be used when a team plays so differently.
I'm not sure it's as easy as that, the pitch is turning and Pakistan have showed in the first innings how they can get England to collapse. I think the current target is going to be tough but Pakistan will get more from here.
I think England probably needed another 50 from their middle order during the first innings. The pitch is difficult, but it’s not a 80 runs for 8 wickets pitch, that was just a collapse. I still think England have a good chance of chasing anything under 250 if they get off to a decent start.
If the target is before 250 then, with the way England play, there's always a chance of one batsman getting in and changing the game even if others around him get out. There are plenty of batsman with ability in the side.
As much as England have destroyed us lately, is always the 1st test in 2020 that haunts me. We had the game in the bag and then Buttler and Woakes had one partnership that turned the game around.
2 drops in that over, could be massive.
Horrible time for that to happen. Felt game defining.
Carse looks a very good bowler. Dad's a Zimbabwean and he was born in SA - didn't know that.
Carse has been sensational, has had no luck. I still can't believe that Smith dropped that sitter
Traditional England Cricketer background
Possibly already out of reach
Pakistan will be nervous with anything under 300 'cos England go hard - but anything above 250 'should' be enough.