Pakistan win by 72 runs

I probably don’t need to say how much it hurt to type that title. England were in such a good position yesterday, and Monty bowled so well to give us a very good chance to win the Test and we didn’t even come close. The series is decided now, England will not get the vital result we needed to solidify our status as world number one. We may stay number one, there are few competitors right now, but we missed a chance to prove that we are worthy champions who can win anywhere. For me that is much more disappointing that the official ranking.

England ought to have won this Test. Pakistan played very, very well in the final innings certainly, but there is seldom an excuse for failing to chase 145. Monty bowled so well in his comeback Test and the bowlers as a whole restricted Pakistan to what should have been a very gettable target. They should have been rewarded for their performance. There was an element of ill-luck for England in that Trott was ill and unable to steady the ship at number three as he often does. Instead once Cook was out Bell came in and Bell is still not reading the doosra. This surprises me a bit, as Bell is such a technically good batsman, but he looks utterly out of his depth here. He was made to look foolish, as were KP and Morgan in quick succession (though the last two need no help) and the collapse was on. It is impossible to know how the innings would have played if Trott had been healthy, of course, but his coming in at seven certainly hurt England. The only batsman who held out for any sort of score was the captain. He top scored with an admittedly fortunate 32 and actually played some nice shots. He was relatively comfortable and there was a period when he and Prior were batting that it looked like they might get settled and knock off the runs. In the end he was out in a very predictable way, however, playing back against the spin.

That was the main killer of the English batsmen, playing too much on the back foot. In addition to leaving them vulnerable to being bowled and LBW, the ball was also very seldom on a length conductive to scoring from the back foot. The batsmen were utterly bogged down, and when they got out they had not put many on the board. Andrew Strauss actually batted 100 balls for his 32, and he was one of England’s quickest scorers. To be fair, I can understand why they wanted to play back. With the DRS they were still vulnerable to LBWs even on the front foot and playing back gave them more time to see how the ball was turning. There is a trick to avoiding LBWs on the front foot, however: play with the bat and not the pad. (Easy!) Of course it’s hard to do that if the ball is turning, but they needed to try. Ideally they needed to get to the pitch of the ball and negate the spin entirely, only playing back if the ball was short. It’s very easy for me to say that sat here, of course, but I am surprised that with all the preparation England usually have that they still fell to such a simple thing. It may not be straightforward to read the length of the ball and react so quickly, but it’s not like they have been able to read the spin either. Getting onto the front foot would also open up more scoring opportunities. Only needing 145 to win, it would not have taken much to force the field back and force the bowlers to be more defensive. It must be said though that the Pakistani bowlers did very, very well. They saw the flaw in England’s tactics and exploited it to the hilt. Poorer bowlers would not have been able to trigger a collapse so effectively, and may not have been able to do enough with the runs they had.

The upcoming dead rubber means that England will potentially have a chance to experiment with the side a bit. As I have said more than once, Morgan is not up to Test standard and should be dropped. (After he got out yesterday, I also suggested on Twitter that he ‘sod off back to Ireland’, but I was just cross then. No one deserves that.) I still would not want to see Bopara back in the side, but at this point even he might be a better option. After the first Test I suggested that if there was a dead rubber it might be a good idea to play Steve Davies, however, and I would like to see that happen in Dubai. I would also still like to see five bowers to help shift the sort of troublesome partnerships we have seen from Pakistan in both of the first two Tests, but those are not mutually exclusive. Morgan should be dropped for a long spell, but KP could stand to miss a Test. He has to be hit where it hurts and that is not his batting average, but his ego. Given that England are extremely unlikely to do that or play five bowlers, however, I am going to stick with wanting to see Davies get a cap. I cannot wait until Bresnan is fit and can solve the problem, however.

What next for India?

The past few months have not been kind to India (though I’ve heard many of their fans wanted England to lose more than Pakistan, so they’ll have some consolation). It’s been clear for some time that they need to make changes and I think after their latest result they may finally do so.

They first, and relatively simple, changes are to personnel. They have some very illustrious batsmen, but they are nearing the end of their careers, if not there already. There are at least some questions to be asked about every one of the Indian top seven, though some more than others. Gautam Gambhir is one of the least well known of the Indian batmen, but he is in the eighth year of his career and averages 45. It’s certainly quite respectable, but he has not made a big score for some time now and he looked badly out of his depth in England and Australia. (He was hardly alone, of course.) He has not done very much to suggest that he be dropped, but nor has he stood out. He also has the problem common to Indian batsmen of impatience to score runs, and he does not leave balls outside his off stump well. I would probably keep him around for a bit longer, but only until the replacements are ready. With Virender Sehwag, however, I would get shot of him as soon as possible. At the very least I would never include him in a squad to play outside Asia. He has no technique and does not even come close to having the temperament for Test cricket. He is the very definition of a flat track bully, averaging 61 in Asia and a miserable 36 outside it. Worse, he is one of the most selfish players in the game. He could be one of the best batsmen in the game, but he refuses to adapt his game in difficult conditions and throws his wicket away when the team need him to perform. No where was this more apparent than in the fourth Test of this most recent series. India needed to bat for over a day to save the Test, but he kept throwing his bat at the ball. He added 62, but he runs were purely nominal. India needed a draw, and he refused to even try.

The openers, Sehwag in particular, have consistently put India in a spot of bother early in the innings, but the failing middle order is probably the most pressing concern. The three pillars of Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman have had, at best, mixed success in England and Australia, but they are all ageing. Dravid is the oddest case. He was a class apart in England, the lone aspect of resistance. In Australia, however, he has been all at sea. He has been horribly missing straight deliveries and all of a sudden he just doesn’t seem to be seeing the ball. For a batsman of his record, especially as recently as last summer it seems harsh to suggest that it will end his career, but he isn’t going to last forever. Tendulkar is probably only out of form by his lofty standards, but at the same time he seems to have lost his touch a bit. He is batting very aggressively and is certainly making starts but is not converting them. Most of his dismissals have been the result of good bowling, but they still tend to be predictable. He does not seem to treat good bowling spells with the respect he deserves. Despite what some may say, he is not god or even Bradman and at the moment he does not seem to realise that. He has some time left in him, but I suspect he his age means will get will get worse rather than better. Laxman is the worst off of the three. He is the only one who has been quite short of runs in both series. Unfortunately for him and for India his career does look like it’s over. He hasn’t had his touch for some time now, and even if he gets it back he is old enough that it is probably not worth waiting for. Of the three, I would drop Laxman immediately. Ideally he would be encouraged to retire, but however the official announcement goes he should not play in India’s next series. Dravid and Tendulkar are more tricky. Tendulkar’s fame is such that he will certainly never be dropped, but it’s unclear if he will have the wherewithal to retire soon. There is also the matter of the ‘100th’ century to consider; as silly as the notion is they still take it seriously. I think he should go soon, however. He still has the chance to go before he is embarrassed and it would improve his legacy if he does so. Dravid is the most interesting of the three. He may have a fatal flaw in his technique, but if there is one person that India should keep to tutor young players it is Dravid. He is the only one who seems to really care about the team and the only one who has been willing to try to dig in and fight when it is needed. None of the others have shown the same type of desire or application and India need their young players to follow Dravid’s lead as opposed to the rest of them. He might benefit from moving down the order, but certainly I would keep him around for as long as is feasible.

The rest of the players are less of a concern, though Dhoni is a poor captain and Adelaide shows that India have a perfectly good replacement for him as wicket-keeper. The problem for the bowlers is their demeanour. They can get early breakthroughs, but once a partnership starts to develop their heads go down and they seem to give up. At what point in the Sydney Test Australia were 37-3, but it wasn’t long after that India seemed to be bowling for the declaration! There is no clear way to fix that problem, though Duncan Fletcher should be able to help. (And if he can’t, he shouldn’t have the job.) A different captain may also help, though the only one with the right mentality is Dravid and he is not a long term solution. For a clear demonstration of the gap in motivation one needs to look no farther than the statements made by Dhoni and Sehwag about the 8-0 combined thrashing and the statements made by Andrew Strauss after England’s horror show in Abu Dhabi. India need more commitment.

India will host England for four Tests in November and if they play the same XI there as they did in Melbourne they will struggle again. In addition to bringing in younger players, they also must find a way to bet those players experience in alien conditions. Suresh Raina was dreadfully exposed against the short ball last summer, but Kohli showed in Australia that it is possible for them to adjust. A season playing county cricket would probably do them a lot of good, though the BCCI are very unlikely to allow them to do so. At the very least they need more ‘A’ tours to places like South Africa and England. Ideally in a year they will have no more than three of their current top seven still playing; they will still have a bedding in period, but they will at least be on the right track.

Adelaide thoughts

The Adelaide Test is over, and I have not watched as much of it as I feel like I should. On the other hand, the bits that I have seen have been pretty much the same as the first three Tests, but there have been some interesting points:

– Most interesting was that Clarke did not enforce the follow-on despite having a huge first innings lead. The only reason for this I can think is that he wanted to rest his bowlers in the heat, but I think it was a bad idea. It didn’t make a difference to the result, but India did get 400 in the second innings at Sydney (their only score of note admittedly) and it seems unreasonable to jeopardise the match by scoring needless runs. It is the last Test of the home series and only Siddle played in the first five. They can (and maybe should) rest in the ODIs, but first they have a Test to win.

– After Clarke did declare, the declaration batting was fairly poor. Most notable was Haddin, who scored so slowly he provoked a seemingly outraged calling of the side in by Clarke. I understand that he is badly in need of runs, but after playing terrible shots for the better part of a year, the declaration was not the time to suddenly start scratching around. It was selfish play, and it in it’s own way was just as bad as his flashes in Cape Town and Hobart.

– It’s no surprise that Sehwag played like an idiot, but as captain some measure of restraint may have been warranted. In the second innings he was opening the batting in a nominal chase of 500, but in practise the goal would have been to bat out the draw and punish Clarke for not making them follow-on. It was a time for the captain to lead from the front and dig in. Instead he continued to throw his bat at everything, rode his luck past fifty (five aerial edges) and finally played a heave to the spinner that was an insult to the game. It was the very antithesis of a captain’s innings and whilst I’m not optimistic, there ought to be repercussions for his behaviour.

Abu Dhabi, day three

For the third time in a row England have had the better day, but for the third time in a row it has been close enough that the match is still very much up for grabs. England batted with more positive intent this morning than they have in the entire series so far, and though they rode their luck at times they finally managed to put the Pakistani bowlers and fieldsmen under a bit of pressure. Prior was out early (LBW for three, after being amazingly dropped on two), and whilst Bell managed to hang on and dig in against the spinners he was undone by a very good ball from Gul. Stuart Broad, however, played with an incredible fluency given how much the proper batsmen had struggled. Part of this was the pressure being off of him, but with England desperately needing lower order runs it cannot have been completely absent. It is not the first time he has rescued the batsmen (Trent Bridge last summer and Lord’s the year before each spring to mind) and I think he has to be considered an all-rounder now. It isn’t fair to call him a bowler who can bat a bit (as Cricinfo did before the lunch interval) as that implies someone like Graeme Swann or Peter Siddle. With respect to those players, Broad is a much better batsman than either of them and whilst I do not like relying on him for runs it can be done. With his four wickets in the first innings and unbeaten 58 he has to be an early favourite for Man of the Match, especially if England win.

Overall I think this was the best of the three days for England. They did not get as many in the morning as they probably would have liked (Bell especially will be disappointed to get out, even if there was not a lot he could have done) they still got a very handy lead of 70. They also did so quickly; they scored 116 runs in the Morning session, the most by one team in a session all series. (The previous best was Pakistan’s 104 runs in the afternoon session of the first day of this Test.) That lead of 70 was about what many were predicting before the start of play and whilst it isn’t a match sealing lead it is enough to put Pakistan under pressure. Given the low scoring nature of the match it is probably equivalent to a lead of 100 or more in more normal conditions. The biggest boost to England was the four wickets that they took before Pakistan had reached parity, however. There was even a time, after Misbah-ul-Haq was out that it looked possible that England could shoot them out today. That didn’t pan out, but England clamped down on the scoring so effectively that Pakistan still only lead by 55, even after a partnership that lasted almost the entire evening session. The run rate for Pakistan’s second innings is only 2.04 and it was below two for most of the innings.

Pakistan’s fifth wicket partnership of 71 is the only thing that kept England from running away with the day, and indeed the Test. Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq, with only 32 Tests between them, batted superbly well to see out the day and keep Pakistani hopes alive. They are the last major pair for Pakistan and the pressure was firmly on them when they came out still 16 runs in arrears. I thought that England could certainly get one or both of them before the close. England certainly do not need to feel anxious for a wicket yet, however. The lead is only 55 and there is very little batting to come. Pakistan probably still want another 100 runs at an absolute minimum and with the difficulty new batsmen have had on this pitch, and Pakistan’s tail in general, have had one would think that this pair need to put on about another fifty. They could do it, but it would take an incredible effort and probably a touch of fortune. This situation (and the ten overs or so before close) is where a fifth bowler would be very useful for England. It’s unlikely, but perhaps a combination of this partnership and Morgan’s repeated failures will give Strauss and Flower cause for reconsideration of the balance of the side.

There is a decent chance that the match will end tomorrow. If England keep the deficit manageable they will have enough time to knock the runs off, but if Pakistan get a big lead (or even if they don’t) there will also be enough time for England to collapse before stumps. After our batting performance in the first innings (327 all out, only 11 shy of the highest innings total of the admittedly short series) I think there’s some much needed confidence in the England dressing room and I don’t think we will have another shocker (even on a wearing pitch against Ajmal), but it is possible. I think the only way the match will go into a fifth day is if Pakistan get another 150+ or so tomorrow and England properly dig in to have a go at chasing the runs. My guess is that England will win it early tomorrow evening, but the way the Test and series has gone so far I would not want to put money on anything just yet.

Abu Dhabi, day two

I am not happy. I should be happy, the first 83 per cent or so of the day went better than I had hoped. Even at my most optimistic I did not dare dream that Pakistan’s tail would last only 16 balls this morning whilst adding just one run and the notion that England would at one point be 200-3 was a best case scenario. Both of those things happened, yet I am not happy because all that good work was thrown away at the end of the day.

Cook and Trott batted superbly after Strauss was dismissed early and put on 139 together, and even when Trott was out to a good ball KP seemed to have his head together and batted well with Cook. The problem came after Cook was dismissed. Pakistan bowled very well, but all of England’s patience suddenly vanished with Cook. At a stroke they went back to being absolutely brainless against the spinning ball and both KP and Morgan departed to needless, stupid shots just before close of play. Morgan’s was particularly bad; there is never a good time for a lame prod outside off stump, but to the penultimate ball of the day is worse than most. It leaves England still 50 runs adrift at the end of the day, but now with the last ‘recognised’ pair at the crease. The way England have played spin so far (like a chicken sans head), suggests that they will not want to chase many in the fourth innings. They have a chance to make sure that they don’t (and actually had a chance to make sure that there wasn’t a fourth innings) but now are going to have to look to the tail for runs again. Broad and Swann (and Jimmy to a lesser extent) batted well in Dubai and they are certainly capable, but they had the advantage there of the pressure being off. I would not discount them, but nor do I want to rely on them when every run is vital.

Flower and Strauss must now also take a serious look at who bats at number six; Eoin Morgan is simply not a Test batsman. He may do very well in the one-day arena, but he does not have the temperament to bat at the highest level. It is a point I have made before, but he only scores runs when England already have a big score and don’t need them. When he comes in with the side under pressure he fails as well and is often outscored by a bowler. As successful as England have been with four bowlers, with Morgan it has left us effectively playing with ten men. (And it is a testament to the skill of those ten that England have tended to win regardless.) Now it is starting to hurt though and something must change. Morgan’s failure in this innings has put England in a situation where they will have to skittle Pakistan in the second innings, but with only four bowlers. Unfortunately, England have no batting cover on this tour (Bopara does not count. Ever.) so unless they want to finally play five bowlers I expect Morgan will get another Test. When England play the first Test in Sri Lanka in March, however, I hope to see Prior at six and Bresnan at seven.

The match is now well set up for the next three days, but that will be small consolation for England. The chance was there to bat Pakistan out of the match, but KP and Morgan have all but thrown it away. England’s hope will be that the tail wags again. Of the batsmen who played in the first Test, the five who will still bat scored 58 per cent of England’s runs in that match. Admittedly that’s not a lot, but it was an average of 100 runs in each innings. If they can replicate that they will have a workable, if not great first innings lead. The best case scenario is that Bell settles down and makes a good score with Prior and the tailenders can have a go after lunch. That is probably the only way England will meet or go past their target of 350. What looks most likely is that we will be bowling again well before tea and relying on the bowlers to knock them over for under 200. It can be done, but it’s a sorry state from where we were at the last drinks interval.

Abu Dhabi, day one

It was a very odd day’s cricket, but England at least shaded it if not won it outright. The day started by England looking like they were going to play both Monty and Finn for long enough to get my hopes up that we were finally going to go with five bowlers, but ultimately only playing Monty. I thought it was a terrible decision at the time; not playing Monty as such, but playing him as part of a four man attack. To me, only having two seamers is too few. It was not as bad as I had thought, England bowled very well, but there were times in the long partnership in the afternoon session in which I think another seam bowler would have been very useful. (Certainly I think he would have been more useful than Morgan batting at six.) But the decision to bowl two spinners looked like a masterstroke during the morning. Swann and Monty bowled in tandem and each picked up a wicket on a pitch that looked like a road.

It was the pitch that was the most unusual aspect of the day. At the start it looked like a flat, fill-your-boots pitch. On TMS Boycott said that England would do fantastically to keep them to 350. As the two spinners took wickets it looked like it might take a lot of turn but there would be nothing in it for the seamers. Broad and Anderson made a mockery of that, however, getting the ball to nip back off the seam and extracting copious amounts of movement with the second new ball. Were it not for three dropped catches (two of them sitters) England would probably already be batting having only conceded about 230. All of which suggests that the pitch was misread at the start, which it probably was, but I don’t think it was so badly misread as to render Pakistan’s total anywhere close to average. To suggest that 256-7 is not a bad total would be to imply that the pitch is as treacherous as the average English wicket in May, which I do not think is true at all. I think the better explanation is that the pitch had a little bit more life in it than was expected, but England simply bowled very, very well. They could have done better, but on a pitch that has seen two high scoring draws and on a still flat looking wicket it was a very good show.

Misbah and Shafiq showed in the afternoon just how easy batting could be. They looked very comfortable as the older ball did not do a lot and could easily blunt England’s attack. (This is where I thought it was a man short.) Their partnership was only ended when Shafiq got himself out with a suicidal mow just before the new ball was due. There’s no guarantee that England’s batsmen won’t go out tomorrow and play the same shot, but with most of them one would back them to have learnt better. (Perhaps not with KP.) Especially with a day of sun on it the pitch will probably be better for batting tomorrow and I think England will back themselves to get at least 400 whenever they get their turn to bat. Depending on how many Pakistan get tomorrow morning (and Misbah is still in to bat with the tail) England should have enough of a lead to put them in the driving seat for the rest of the match.

Today was hard to read, but tomorrow should clarify matters. Usually that means I’ll look like an idiot, mind, but hopefully not this time.

Abu Dhabi preview

In about nine hours, England will start a match that might be considered ‘must-win’ for the first time since the final Test of the 2009 Ashes. England have not actually trailed in a series since the 51 all out debacle in the West Indies three years ago, and have only played a Test at 1-1 twice. Both of those were against Australia and both were famous victories. Unfortunately for England, they might find themselves in a situation more closely related to that of the West Indies, where three shirtfronts stymied the attempted comeback. It will be interesting to see how England cope with the pressure now; one of their greatest strengths in the last few years has been winning early and keeping the pressure off. They have coped admirably in the few times when there has been real pressure on them, however, and I am backing them to do the same here.

England will be without the services of Chris Tremlett after he had a recurrence of his back/side problems that kept him out for the latter half of the summer. Whilst it’s a disappointment for him, I think it’s no bad thing for England; I suggested that he ought to be dropped anyway and I was far from alone. There have been conflicting reports on who is going to take his place. I’ve heard some say that Onions is the front runner, whilst others have said it’s a late choice between Finn and Monty based on the conditions. It’s no secret that I’ve backed Onions for a few months now, so I’m hoping he gets the nod. I would not at all be disappointed to see Finn though. He’s a good bowler and tends to take a lot of wickets, I just think Onions is better suited to the conditions.

The batting looks likely to be unchanged, though I don’t think anyone thought that England would make any alterations without being forced by injury to do so. It will be Strauss and Cook’s 100th opening partnership, though they have not bee very prolific over the past year. On a flat deck this may be a good opportunity for them to bring the landmark up in some style, though the first session of the match has not been kind to batsmen in the previous two Tests. England will probably bat first no matter what. I expect Strauss to back himself and his fellows to make runs, but Pakistan have a history of inserting opponents so either way we should see Strauss and Cook walk out to the middle first up. If they can survive the first hour or two they should be able to book in for bed and breakfast, as they say. If they can give the bowlers something at which to bowl I definitely think they can put themselves in a position to win the match. Even on a flat deck it will be hard for Pakistan to amass a huge total; this probably going to be the same English attack that only conceded 550 in two innings on the Adelaide road a year ago. Pakistan can bat better than Australia, but I think they’ll still struggle to get to 400.

The worry for England will be a high scoring draw that will cost them a chance to win the series. Strauss is an inherently defensive captain and we saw him failing to force the issue a couple of times during the series against Sri Lanka in the summer. The rain, which was the biggest factor in those draws, will not come into play this time, but Strauss still must attack more than he usually does. England can lay down a marker by winning this series, but to do that they need to go all out to win this Test.

Adelaide, day one

There was probably no need to actually watch the cricket today. (And actually I didn’t watch the entire day, I wanted to see some of the tennis too.) India played the same way they did in England and the same way they did for most of the first three Tests in Australia though. Once again they looked like they cared for about a session and after they had bowled for longer than they would in a limited overs match they seemed to give up and wait for the declaration. It was a flat deck, but after they had got the top three out in the morning they had a chance if they had applied some more pressure. It was not on an atypical Adelaide wicket that England reduced Australia to 2-3 and eventually 245 all out. Australia were only 82 runs better off when they lost their third wicket this time, but India never looked like they were going to press home that advantage. Clarke and Ponting deserve credit though; they batted imperiously for two and a bit sessions in an unbroken stand of over 250.

Part of India’s malaise is almost certainly down to the fact that Virender Sehwag was the captain. It rather surprised me when it was announced that he was to captain the side for this Test as it did not require precognitive powers (not that I have them, or that such powers even exist) to guess what was going to happen. They say that a captain sets the example and I shudder to think what sort of example Sehwag sets. He must be one of the laziest Test cricketers in the world, perhaps even one of the laziest cricketers full stop. The Chuck-Fleetwood Smiths once described his fielding as ‘with a deck chair drinking a piña colada‘ and as far as I can tell that’s his default setting. He absolutely failed to inspire the team in any way when they had been in the field all day and I very much doubt anyone is surprised by that.

India have been so poor in this series that I have almost run out of ways to describe them without getting repetitive. Their only hope in this match is that the pitch is so flat their batsmen can get a few runs and they can draw the game. True Indian fans may hope that doesn’t happen though. Despite the multitude of excuses for their poor form, there are starting to be a few high profile voices calling for major change to the side. India must heed those calls if they are to improve and there is no more effective way to make sure they are ignored than for their batsmen to make enough runs to save the game. If that happens then the media and many fans will say that everything is good again in India and they will continue to say so right up until (and possibly after) they are hammered by England in November.

New Zealand v Zimbabwe preview

It’s another one-off Test between these two, following the one in Zimbabwe a few months ago. The Kiwis wont that one, and on form they should certainly do the double next week. There are still a lot holes in their side though, and the historic victory over a weak Australia should not disguise that.

The Kiwis well make at least two, probably three, changes to the side that won at Hobart. Jesse Ryder and Reece Young have been left out of the squad, the former due to the calf injury that he sustained in Zimbabwe. Young might feel a bit hard done by; he has been dropped for his batting after some very solid glovework. I think the selectors can justify the decision though, their top order never really fired in Australia and some insurance down the order (in addition to Vettori). BJ Watling and Kruger van Wyk are the two possible replacements and are both playing in the current warmup match. Watling looks like the front runner at the moment, being run out for 84 as opposed to van Wyk’s nick behind for five. The other likely change for the Kiwis is Vettori’s presumed return after being injured for the Hobart Test. As well as New Zealand bowled there I cannot see them not bringing Vettori back in place of one of the seamers. Trent Boult originally came into the side in place of Vettori, so he is most likely to miss out. That said, he arguably out-bowled Southee at Hobart and this pitch is likely to be similar. It will be interesting to see what the selectors do before the Test.

Zimbabwe very nearly beat New Zealand last time these two sides met, but I think they’ll have a lot more trouble in the less batting friendly conditions. They have not played in properly foreign conditions in several years now and I don’t think one warmup match will be enough for them. They might be able to knock the Kiwis over cheaply in one of the innings, but I don’t think their batsmen will adjust quickly enough. They also have the disadvantage of not having played since that match against New Zealand at the beginning of November.

I think the match will be a low scoring affair, but a good innings by the Kiwis (probably anchored by a Vettori ton) will be enough to give them a relatively comfortable win. I think the margin of victory will be about 150 runs.

Saturday review – 21 Jan

It’s been a rather dismal week for England. There aren’t many worse ways to start a series than a three day defeat and England will have to play much, much better in the next two Tests to get anything out of this series. The match was also notable for controversies about Saeed Ajmal’s delivery action and the DRS. For once though the cricket actually overshadowed everything else, which is good. Other things happened elsewhere in cricket, but to be honest I was not paying that much attention. I gather that the BBL overcame it’s uncertain start and sold a shedload of tickets at the Waca though. Good for it. In better news, Andy Murray eased into the round of 16 at the Australian open with three pretty convincing wins. He’s still set to face Djokovic in the semis though, so no doubt he’ll be Scottish before the end of next week.

All of the good articles this week were about the England’s defeat, as indeed were most of the bad articles. (Someone somewhere may have written about Australia v India, but surely no one still cares about that?) My favourites were:

The Teesra and other variations – Alan Tyers, The Cricketer
(As amusing as one would expect from the author.)

Jonathan Agnew’s BBC column

Andrew Strauss must lead inquiry into England’s batting failings – Vic Marks, the Guardian

Test Match Special suffers along with England in Dubai – Adam Mountford, BBC

All in a Spin – David Lloyd, Sky Sports