Pakistan v England review and player marks

There’s not much more to say about how England performed in this series. No batsman scored a hundred and only Matt Prior averaged over 30 in the series. England were not just poor with the bat, but historically awful. The only series of three or more matches in which England have averaged lower than the 19.06 they did in the UAE was the 1888 Ashes. From that perspective, it’s amazing to think that we definitely ought to have wont he second Test and maybe even the third. It’s hard to know which is more surprising: that the bowlers kept us in the match after the batsmen had failed so badly or that the batsmen threw away such good positions. I’ve compiled marks out of ten for each of the players:

Pakistan
Misbah-ul-Haq* – 7/10
It was only a mediocre series with the bat from the Pakistan captain, but such was the nature of the series that his average of 36 was still fifth highest. More importantly for Pakistan is that he led the side well. It didn’t seem to take a lot to beat England’s batsmen, but he did not give them very many openings with his bowling changes and field placings.

Mohammad Hafeez – 6/10
Only one score of note with the bat, 88 in the first match, but he made it into double figures each of his other innings as well. His main contribution was with the ball, spinning it early in the innings. He took five wickets at 16 apiece, including the wicket of Cook on the first morning that started the rot for England.

Taufeeq Umar – 3/10
Passed fifty in the first Test, but was dismissed cheaply by Swann and Anderson in the next two. Victim of some good bowling, but did not look assured and did not defend well.

Azhar Ali – 9/10
Overcame an indifferent start to the series to finish top of the averages thanks to a match winning 157 in the final Test. He also scored a crucial (and possibly also match winning) 68 in the second Test and showed considerable maturity throughout.

Younis Khan – 6/10
A high score of 127 in a series where only one other batsman made it to three figures would seem to require more than six points out of ten, but he only scored 66 runs in the other four innings in the series. His high score before that knock had been 37 in the opening Test, and that had been ignominiously ended when he was lbw to Jonathan Trott.

Asad Shafiq – 5/10
A very creditable series for a batsman from whom little was expected. He passed 40 in three of the five innings in which he batted, but had difficulty going on and his top score was only 58.

Adnan Akmal† – 4/10
In rating the latest Akmal’s performance it is important to compare him with other wicket-keepers, not just his infamous brother. He did a reasonable job with the gloves, but appealed every time the ball hit the pads. (Though I will concede that a lot of them were out.) Had a hilarious drop early in England’s third Test run chase, but it cost them little. Poor series with the bat, but better than most were expecting.

Abdur Rehman – 9/10
A fantastic series for the left arm spinner, he finished only behind Ajmal in the series wicket tally and was the main destroyer in England’s second and third Test collapses.

Umar Gul – 8/10
Very quietly had a brilliant series. All of the headlines were about England woes against spin and with the effectiveness of Ajmal and Rehman he only needed to bowl 74 overs in the series. In those 74 overs he took 11 wickets at 22.27 and with a strike rate second only to Ajmal.

Saeed Ajmal – 10/10
Came off a brilliant 2011 and could not have made a better start to 2012. England could not read his variations and never got over the mess he made of them in the first innings of the series. Bell in particular looked all at sea facing him. Deserved man of the series.

Aizaz Cheema- 1/10
Only played in the first and third Tests, but was hardly needed. Bowled only 27 overs and took one wicket for 70 runs. Scored 0* in each of his three innings with the bat.

Junaid Khan – 0/10
Sadly, never really showed up. His biggest contribution to the second Test was a terrible drop in the deep with Prior batting in the first innings. Took 0-33 off eight overs in the first innings, did not bowl in the second.

England
Andrew Strauss* – 6/10
Led from the front with a good 56 in the last Test, but that was the high point as he struggled to get onto the front foot the entire series. He used his bowlers to good effect and did a good job keeping spirits up when England were in the field.

Alastair Cook – 5/10
Could not replicate his form from the summer, though he came closest of any English batsman to score a century this series. His soft dismissal in the first innings of the first Test set the tone for the series and he fell cheaply to start the disastrous run chase in the second Test too.

Jonathan Trott – 5/10
Second in England’s batting averages, but needless to say he still had a poor series. Made a good 74 in the second Test, but had an untimely illness in the second and could not meaningfully contribute to the run chase.

Kevin Pietersen – 1/10
Not merely a poor series from KP, but an abysmal one. He threw his wicket away more often than not, his efforts in the second innings of the first Test deserving special criticism. He finally started to find some form in the third Test, but still could not master the trick of hitting the ball with the bat when defending.

Ian Bell – 1/10
Poor Ian. Only once did he look like he could pick the variations from Ajmal and when he did he was trapped by Gul instead. His dismissal in the third Test run chase was one of the worst one will ever see, the very picture of a batsman out of form. From a man who came into the series on the back of an imperious 200 against India, it was rather a shock.

Eoin Morgan – 1/10
Eoin Morgan was supposed to be the man who would play spin. Supposedly his unorthodox style and ability to score quickly and to all parts of the field were going to be invaluable against spin. Instead he consistently threw his wicket away to the spinners. Just for a change in the last Test he threw his wicket away to Gul instead, but the entire series clearly showed up a dearth of application.

Matt Prior† – 7/10
England’s best batsman, plus another good series with the gloves (though he did not have a huge amount to do behind the stumps). He started the series with an unbeaten 70 as England collapsed and finished it with an unbeaten 49. His form dipped in between, but he was one of only two batsmen to get into double figures in the second Test run chase.

Stuart Broad – 9/10
Put in an absolutely amazing effort in the series. He was the pick of the English bowlers with 13 wickets at just over 20 and put England into excellent positions in the second and third Tests. He was more than handy with the bat as well, averaging more than KP, Bell and Morgan and scoring more in one innings (58* in the first innings of the second Test) than Bell did in the series.

Graeme Swann – 8/10
Rather unexpectedly found himself as the second spinner when Monty returned to the side, but still performed admirably. He finished with 13 and an almost identical strike rate to Broad, but conceded about sixty more runs. As usual, he was most effective against left-handers

Jimmy Anderson – 8/10
Took a bit of a back seat to Broad, but certainly did not embarrass himself. He was very unlucky to end up with only nine wickets, but bowled a very tight, probing line throughout.

Monty Panesar – 9/10
England sprung a surprise by playing two spinners in Abu Dhabi, and Monty took the opportunity superbly. He took 6-62 in the second innings to set up what should have been a very straightforward run chase. He was the only English bowler to take five wickets in a match in the series and he did so twice, picking up 14 in all.

Chris Tremlett – 0/10
Only played in the first Test and only had a chance to bowl in the first innings. He took 0-53, never looked particularly threatening and was dropped in favour of Monty.

Despite the poor performance of England in the series, I would not make wholesale changes for Sri Lanka. It is worth remembering that we did come up against some very good bowlers in conditions which suited them. KP and Bell averaged over 70 and over 100 last year, respectively, so to suggest that they be dropped over one poor series is very, very harsh. Similarly, Andrew Strauss has not been in the best of form with the bat, but he is easily the best leader of the side. Cook showed in the ODIs in India that he is not ready for the captaincy yet, and I would certainly not want to entrust Broad with it as I would want some England to still have reviews left after the first over. In any case, Strauss was the best of the full time batsmen in the third Test.

A change I would make is that I would drop Morgan.He has shown in this series that he is not a Test batsman. That is not to say that he will never be one, but he was brought into the side on the back of limited overs performances and I think a season playing first class cricket will do his temperament no end of good. In his place I would play Tim Bresnan, assuming he is fit (which seems likely). Whilst it seems odd to suggest playing one fewer batsman after the struggles in the UAE, Bres has a Test batting average of 45. Not only is this very reasonable on its own, it is actually 15 runs higher than Morgan averages. It’s good enough that I would pick him as a batsman over Mogan and Bopara even if he did not bowl a single ball.

That is the only change I would make, however, the other batsmen have good enough records that they certainly deserve another chance against the weaker Sri Lankan bowling and Monty has easily done enough to stay in the starting XI. It’s been a poor series, but these players will be strongly motivated to put that behind them and play well in Sri Lanka.

Dubai, third Test, day three

England have not yet lost. It’s more of a cruelty than anything else, however. Pakistan collapsed abruptly to some sharp spin in the evening session to leave England a very improbable target of 324 to win. England made it to stumps on 36-0.

The highlight of the day, the match, and maybe the series, was Azhar Ali. He scored a fantastic 150, the highest individual score of the series and a fantastic demonstration of how to bat on a pitch like this. He seldom took any undue risks, but scored when he had the opportunity to do so and rotated the strike well. It took over nine hours and demonstrated the utmost maturity and patience of which we have seen too little in Test cricket recently. It was an innings of Cook-esque brilliance and without it England’s target would be looking a lot more gettable. It may well be that he has hit a match winning knock for his country in a match and series were almost all of the batsman have failed and he thoroughly deserves every bit of praise he gets.

Pakistan lost their last seven wickets for only 34 runs and lost them to some sharp spin from Monty (who bagged another five-fer) and Swann, so I don’t think England will score another 288 runs and win the Test. Stranger things have happened, of course, and our batting did look a bit better in the first innings, but it is unlikely. England need a good foundation from this pair, but I fear they will need to put on about 200 to make England favourites as it’s not uncommon for a team for team to get off to a good start in a run chase and then collapse to a big defeat. (England chasing 400+ at Lord’s in 2005 is a good example.) For England to win the match they will have to bat out of their skins on a pitch that is now turning sharply. They won’t quite need their highest score in the series, which is 327, but they will need someone to step up and score a century in the same way that Ali did for Pakistan. It is a batting order which we know can score runs and if they manage to knock these off it will be a famous victory. By definition, however, famous victories are quite rare; more likely is that they will get close enough to make us optimistic and then lose anyway. Like I said: it’s cruel.

Pay no attention to the man in the blue shirt!

You should definitely already be watching Jeremy Irvine’s excellent series of Armchair Selector vodcasts. I am a guest in this episode too, so I suppose if you like reading what I write you will also like hearing what I have to say. Or you might come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that I have a very annoying voice and should stick to writing. Either way, the rest of the programme is excellent as always:

Dubai, third Test, day two

It’s almost over now. Today was the day that the bowlers, who have done absolutely everything they could in this series to keep England from being blown away, could finally do no more. Azhar Ali and Younis Khan have batted for two sessions and taken Pakistan to 222-2, a lead of 180. It’s probably already too many for England to chase and Pakistan can easily add another 200 to it. For the first time in the series England looked flat in the field and uninspired bowling. It’s annoying, but there comes a point at which I cannot blame them. They have performed brilliantly all series and put England in winning positions both in the second Test and in the first innings of this one only for the batsmen to let them down time and time again. They can’t be blamed for finally coming up short.

There are two possible upsides for England. The first is that maybe maybe, just this once the batsmen will not humiliate themselves and us. The pitch is flat (though so were the other two) and maybe they can do something reasonable for once. It’s unlikely, though the Pakistani batsmen have done well and they had a poor series too. More likely is that the bright side will be that the match will be over today. Pakistan could bat almost to stumps, but if they declare at lunch, or even the afternoon drinks break we probably won’t have to come back tomorrow. I’m not sure which I would prefer.

The DRS, again

Once again there has been controversy in this Test about the use of the DRS. I already wrote my thoughts on the DRS in general, but this series has brought up some new points. Mostly the talk has been about the number of LBWs that have been given with the review system (never any mention that most of them were given out anyway) and how that caused the low scoring in this match.

I think, once again, that most of the criticism has been unwarranted. The DRS is changing how players have to play in that they are not necessarily safe even getting a big stride in. Whilst this is a change, it is not something batsmen cannot get used to. It may be easy to say from sitting on my settee, but one can never be out LBW if one hits the ball. Getting a big stride in and exploiting the benefit of the doubt used to ensure being given not out, but that does not mean all those ‘not out’ decisions were good. The principle of the LBW law has not changed: if one is hit on the pads and the ball would have hit the stumps one is out. It’s very simple and the other caveats of the ball having to pitch inside the line of leg stump and hit inside the line of off stumps have not changed either. The only thing that has changed is that the decisions are being made correctly now, instead of batsmen being able to exploit uncertainty. Now the batsmen must learn to hit the ball with the bat, which cannot be a bad thing. It will take some getting used to, but the necessary changes in technique will surely take place.

I have heard that it pointed out that the batsmen cannot always make contact with the ball and should be able to play with bat and pad together, but why? If one misses the ball and is bowled no one suggests one has been hard done by. The same is, or ought to be, true in this case. The onus must be on the batsman to hit the ball, not defend with his pad.

I have also heard it suggested that if the ball is only clipping the stumps it should be given ‘not out’ rather than ‘umpire’s call’. There is some merit in this. Theoretically, if the umpire has already taken ‘benefit of the doubt’ into consideration than there is no need for technology to do so. This, theoretically, is the situation currently in place. There has been some suggestion, and not unfounded I think, that the umpires are giving decisions out more regularly knowing that the DRS is there. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with that, but if so the technology must give the batsman benefit of the doubt and give close decisions not out.

The final suggestion that I have heard that I want to address is that the DRS is the reason for all of these low scores. It has possibly played a role, but the batsmen have played brainlessly for the most part and a lot of the LBW shouts that have been given have been given on the field, not on review. On the low and slow pitches of the UAE, bowled and LBW are always going to be more likely than caught.

There are improvements that can be made to the DRS; in addition to the one given above there are improvements that need to be made to the technology. Virtual-Eye has been much less reliable than than HawkEye is the most notable one, but improvements to HotSpot are also in order and a version of Snicko that worked quickly enough to use in the DRS would be very nice. The system itself is a good one though. It may alter the way batsmen have to play on the subcontinent, but that will not kill the game and in this series at least has made it more exciting. Most importantly, there are more correct decisions being made now.

Endless ODI preview

Now that the two T20s are over and India have finally managed an away win in some format we can look forward to over a month’s worth of ODIs! I hope you’re all as excited as I am about the prospect of 15 one day internationals. After all, no one got bored senseless after five of the seven match post-Ashes ODI series so the best thing to do is double that number and make sure that four of the matches will be between teams about whom the locals do not care.

Looking at the teams, I can’t see anyone other than Australia winning. Australia did not have the same dip in form in the shorter format as they have had in Test matches, and they are still difficult to beat at home. They won the short series against South Africa recently, and going back farther beat England even after being hammered in the Test series. They did not do as well in the World Cup, but will have the advantage of the conditions this time.

The more (but still not very) interesting question is who they will play in the final. India have finally broken their overseas duck, but almost anything can happen in a T20. They still have a lot of questions to be answered about their batting in foreign conditions, however, none of the problems they had in the Test series will entirely vanish in the shorter form, even if their bowling may tighten up. We saw in England that they still struggle, even against a decidedly mediocre ODI side and I expect them to struggle playing Australia.

Sri Lanka are punching above their weight right now, I’d say. Their players have not been paid properly for quite some time now, and eventually that will take a toll on even the most committed cricketer. The fact that they still managed a famous win in Durban is a massive credit to their spirit. They are another side, however, who have not been threatening outside the subcontinent, losing the ODI series in England and South Africa.

The second finalist will probably be decided by the winner of the head to head matches between India and Sri Lanka and those will be interesting, if sparsely attended. Neither side is suited to exploit the weaknesses of the other side in the conditions. I would expect Sri Lanka to win though, they have shown more fight recently and I think that will count for a lot. Ultimately, I expect Australia to beat Sri Lanka 2-0 in the finals.

Dubai, third Test, day one

I feel a bit like I’m listening to a set of variations on a theme with England in this series. Specifically this would be Strauss’s ‘Variations on a theme of having the bowlers do all the work’. Once again they performed outstandingly well, Stuart Broad in particular. He bowled quickly and on a good length getting the ball to nip back a bit and was rewarded with four wickets. Jimmy bowled similarly and picked up three. Pakistan did not play them entirely comfortably, and some of the shots were truly dreadful, but take nothing away from Broad and Anderson; they were fantastic. Pakistan were bowled out for 99 one ball after the midway point of the day. It was exactly how England needed to respond to the defeat in Abu Dhabi and were it any other series (the Ashes, say) one would think that the match was decided then and there. But nothing on this tour is that simple. There was a point at which even a first innings lead did not look a given, as Cook and Trott went early to leave the score 7-2. Eventually Strauss did guide the side to 104-6 at stumps.

England were a bit more unfortunate in the batting collapse this time. Cook was out to an uncharacteristic waft, but Trott was LBW to a ball that was going down leg, but Strauss decided not to review it. Strauss has been a very good judge of these in the past (and this is the one area in which England have comprehensively outplayed Pakistan in the series, Pakistan have had a tendency to throw their reviews away) and this did not sound like a bad decision originally, but as it transpired the ball was going down leg. Still, one could say it was poetic justice for Trott’s similar reprieve at Abu Dhabi. KP was either completely done by technology with shocker of an LBW decision or missed a straight-ish one from the left arm spin of Rehman, depending on one’s opinion on DRS. He got forward to the spinner and was given out on the field. He reviewed and the replay had the ball just clipping the stumps so he stayed out. He was furious and there were many who were unhappy with the decision and the DRS, but I thought it was fair. Once again, it was given out on the field, so the DRS did not give him out and the ball was clipping the stumps, so the decision was clearly not a terrible one. It was disappointing especially as KP had played very well for his 32, but he was not hard done by the decision. It was a blow for England as Strauss then went into his shell again and Bell was having his usual trouble picking Ajmal. He probably only lasted as long as he did because Strauss had been protecting him, but his dismissal was the most unfortunate of all of England’s. He was stumped off the keeper’s pads and only by a proverbial kitten’s whisker. It actually required Akmal to miss the ball (not difficult) and then get a perfect ricochet off the pads. If Prior had been behind the timbers it would have been not out, simply by virtue of the fact that he would have taken the ball cleanly.

There was some hope, however, that the other batsmen would have seen KP’s success getting on the front foot and playing straight and follow suit. Morgan even hit a straight six, but normal service was resumed soon enough. He played back, was hit in front and given out on review. It was a simple and predictable dismissal, but still infuriating. KP showed how to play and Morgan showed that he could play the way we needed, and then failed to carry on. Morgan is now one of the players who falls into my ‘never want to see playing for England again’ category. It’s not a permanent classification, some time playing county cricket could do him the world of good, but right now I’d rather see Monty selected as a specialist batsman than Morgan. (Bopara is also on the list, it should be pointed out.) Prior also missed a straight one, but was actually bowled instead of LBW. It didn’t require a review, obviously, but did serve to demonstrate the fact that when a ball only clips the stumps it is out! (Somehow I think the lesson was lost on KP and a few others, however.) Interestingly, James Anderson went out as a nightwatchman for Stuart Broad. In a way it makes sense; Anderson can bat and Broad has been one of our best batsmen in the series. Jimmy did his job for the second time in the day and England only lost six wickets.

For Pakistan, 99 all out doesn’t look good, but at one point they were 44-7. It was once again Asad Shafiq who frustrated England, scoring an excellent 45. He alone of the Pakistanis looked comfortable and was only dismissed looking for runs to keep the strike. Mohammad Hafeez looked decent, however and seemed to think himself unlucky to be given out LBW. He clearly felt that he had got an inside edge, as did Simon Taufel, but not the third umpire and he had to go. He and KP will have something about which to talk, possibly when they run into each other outside the match referee’s office later.

In 88 overs of play today 203 runs were scored for the loss of 16 wickets. It’s especially surprising given that most of the people who saw the pitch before the day started saw it as a flat batting surface. David Lloyd called it a 400 pitch and it looked for all the world like a great toss to win. It puts the match in a similar situation as in the last Test, with England wanting a big lead to compensate for batting last. The interesting thing this time is that the pitch is still not a minefield and the fourth innings may be played on the third day. That won’t help England with regard to their mental block about spin bowling, but it does mean that they may not have any additional problems from this innings. Still, it looks like once again we are relying on the bowlers to score runs and then bowl Pakistan out cheaply.

Pak v Eng stats

It’s fair to say that England’s batsmen have not had a good tour of the UAE so far. Seeing the performance in light of England spending the last year breaking batting records left, right and centre has been especially shocking, but the numbers actually stand out without any help. I’ve sound some fairly interesting numbers ahead of the third Test

England’s top seven batsmen average just 18.77 between them, right now that’s the lowest they have averaged in any series this century by some distance. The next lowest is 25.04, set on the 03/04 tour of Sri Lanka, so they will need a fairly good performance (most likely in the area of 500 runs) to avoid the worst mark this century.

Pakistan’s top order have been kept in check, however, meaning that the two teams have an average of 25.97 for the top seven batsmen. Currently it ranks 182 of the 190 series this century. Interestingly, recent Pakistan sides have been involved in three of the lower averages; both their series in England in 2010 had combined top order averages under the one from this Test, and their two Test series against the Windies last year is the second lowest.

So far no batsman has scored a century in the series. There have been 14 series of two or more matches in which no batsman has scored a century, but only six three match series in which that has occurred (or failed to occur) and two of those were in the nineteenth century.

The last time no English batsman has scored a century in a series was at home against New Zealand in 1999.

Pakistan’s win is their fourth in a row, which they have not done since August – October 2003 when they whitewashed Bangladesh and then won the first Test against South Africa. The last time they won more than four consecutive Tests was when they won six on the trot from May 2001 to February 2002.

It would be nice to avoid a whitewash

I’m a bit torn trying to guess England’s prospects for the third Test. On the one hand they haven’t played as poorly as they did in the fourth innings since the 51 all out debacle at Sabina Park three years ago, but at the same time they were in front for the first three days of the Test and even a slightly better performance would have seen them level the series.

It was a popular statistic going into the second Test that England had not lost back to back Tests since losing the second and third Tests against South Africa in the summer of 2008. It was a mark of the resilience of the side, but with that string of results being broken and the batting looking as frail as ever they will have to find even more to prevent their first whitewash since the 06/07 Ashes. (Which was also the last time we lost three matches on the trot). I do not doubt the motivation of the side, but I do worry about whether the batmen can overcome both their technical deficiencies and what now appear to be major mental blocks. This is why bringing someone new like Steven Davies may help, as he was not part of those collapses and hopefully would have a more positive outlook. A fully fit Jonathan Trott will also help England a lot, as the fact that the batting order was shuffled certainly did not help England in their chase of 72. I will reiterate, however, that I don’t think Ravi Bopara should come into the side. Morgan’s problem is that he cannot score runs when England are under pressure and Bopara has long since proven that he has the same weakness. He can make runs against mediocre attacks, but I very much doubt he will improve the side at all in Dubai.

Any proposed changes are mostly just window-dressing, however; England simply have to bat better in these conditions. We have a very accomplished batting order that includes the best opener in the world, a number three who averages over fifty, a number five who averaged over 100 last year and the best ‘keeper-batsman in cricket. It is not a top seven that should be averaging 18.77 even in alien conditions. There have been some scores, Alastair Cook’s 94 is actually the best in an innings on either side, so we know they can play, but for whatever reason they are getting trapped in a negative mindset and failing. Flower will be working on that, but I would not want to predict the results.

Compare and contrast

I’ve complied some quotes following England’s loss in Abu Dhabi and India’s loss in Adelaide. See if you can spot a pattern.

‘We also won 2-0 in India.’ – Virender Sehwag

‘It is a struggle to think of a loss that has hurt more than this.’ – Andrew Strauss

‘We make our own plans, and it didn’t click. It happens with every team, with every player. The time is not good for Indian team, for individuals, so maybe that’s why we are not scoring runs.’ – Sehwag

‘[…] we weren’t good enough to deal with their spinners; we weren’t skilful enough and we didn’t deal with the pressure well enough. We have to face up to those facts.’ – Andy Flower

‘”Embarrassed” is not the right word. Nobody has done any one thing faulty. We have not fooled or cheated anyone. “We are extremely disappointed” is probably the words I can use.’ – Ravichandran Ashwin

‘As a batting unit we have to hold our hands up and say we haven’t done well enough. We have been rolled over three times in four innings this series. There are no excuses – we need to be better than that.’ – Strauss

‘I think there are people that appreciate that once again things – dew, rain, everything – didn’t go our way. I hope that doesn’t happen here. I am sure it will not happen over a period of one month.’ – Ashwin

‘[…] these issues will not disappear and we’ve got to face them with skill and a bit of courage. We’ve got to be a lot better than we were yesterday. Each individual will have to work very hard in working out his method of scoring.’ – Flower

‘Everything is going to be fresh. It is going to be a different ball game. The colour of the ball also changes. Hopefully we could change our luck as well.’ – Ashwin

England have lost a quarter of the Tests away from home that India have lost. I Would suggest that they are thus four times as motivated to win, but I think that may be an understatement.