Pakistan v England tour review

Make no mistake, this was a dreadful tour for England. It’s easy to forget that in the wake of a 4-0 ODI victory and a 2-1 T20 victory, but when it really counted we lost 0-3.

Our batsmen mostly displayed either an infuriating inconsistency on the tour or were simply consistently awful. This was a middle order that came into the series having thrashed the best in the world in England and the second best in the world in their own backyard. 517-1, 620-5, 513 and 644 v Australia in Australia and 474-8, 544, 710-7 and 591-6 v India suddenly gave way to 72 all out. The spin of Ajmal was a contributing factor, of course, but it was not the sharp, quick spin of someone like Warne. It was theoretically playable spin, but England could not play it. I thought before the series that the batsman would win it for us, but instead they did the exact opposite. And then, incredibly surprisingly, they turned their fortunes around in the ODIs. Captain Cook scored two tons and an eighty, whilst KP chipped in with a pair of imperious tons and a match winning 50 in the last T20. That’s the same KP who averaged 11 in the Tests. The turnaround was not quite inexplicable, one of England’s problems in the Tests was an unwillingness to go after Ajmal and not just sit back and block. In the ODIs they had to try to score and had the extra advantage of fewer men around the bat and so had better success. (Though that’s a relative measure, Ajmal still did very well.)

Cook and Prior are probably the only ones to come through with their reputations unscathed; Cook had the highest individual score for England in the Tests, plus good success in the ODIs and Prior had the highest average in the Tests (the only one over 30). Strauss, however, did not embarrass himself to the extent of many of the batsmen. He was the only one to look relatively assured during the 72 all out debacle, and for a time it looked like he and Prior might lead England to victory. Strauss then also ground out a fifty in the third Test run chase. I know none of that sounds like much, but the important aspect was that he looked like he had learnt how to play, albeit too late. None of the other batsmen looked like they had learnt anything at all. KP, meanwhile, will coast into the next series on the back of his ODI and T20 heroics, but he had an absolutely terrible Test series and that must not be swept under the rug. He looked, as he so often does, like an idiot. And I don’t mean in the proverbial sense, I mean he looked literally stupid. He so often does not seem capable of learning from experience and has always had very poor impulse control. He did better in the ODIs, but he has to find a way to play sensibly when it matters. When it comes off, as it did at Lord’s last year, it is majestic and when he only does that in pyjama cricket it is so, so frustrating. There was also the limited overs introduction of Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow. Buttler was much hyped after an incredible Lions tour to Sri Lanka, but he did not look quite ready for this level yet. Bairstow did rather better, hitting a match winning 60* in the second T20 and generally looking quite composed. Bopara was another who was given a chance in the limited overs leg, and scored two fifties in the ODIs. This has led, of course, to another wave of suggestions for him to bat at six in the Test series. Very annoyingly, I except Flower and Strauss will agree. Despite my saying that Morgan has to go, I cannot overemphasise that Bopara is not the answer! He has failed in every chance that he has been given in Tests. If we are going to persist with playing a batsman at six then we should give a chance to one of the Lions players. There are no fewer than three candidates, any of whom would not be worse than Bopara. Personally, I would play another bowler, but…

In the vicious battle for worst batsman of the tour, Morgan edges out Bell by virtue of failing for the entire tour as opposed to just the Tests. Morgan showed clearly that he does not have the temperament for Test cricket, at least not yet, and then he abjectly failed to redeem himself in the limited overs matches. This despite the fat that he is supposed to be a limited overs expert, able to find any gap in the field. He did sod all, then gave an interview that showed he was not willing to work and change to help the team. As I said last week, it’s time for him to go back to Ireland. Bell, meantime, had a much more anomalous tour. He was the best batsman in the world last year, averaging over 100, but he could seemingly not buy a run this time. Even when he started to look like he might know roughly how to play Ajmal he promptly became unable to play Gul and his last dismissal of the series was horrific. He has a very good record as a batsman, however, and I expect him to improve.

The one outstanding bright spot on the tour was the bowlers. The 0-3 scoreline was fair in the end, but the absolutely outstanding bowling effort prevented it from being in the same league as the hammering we gave to India during the summer. The only bowler who did not perform was Tremlett, who probably ought not have been selected at all. Graeme Swann had a slightly below par tour, but still did quite well despite taking a backseat to Monty in the second two Tests. Broad, Jimmy and Monty were outstanding, however. Monty deserves special praise for doing so well after being out of the Test side for so long, but Broad and Anderson were not supposed to be so effective on the slower pitches. Broad was probably the pick of the bowlers for me, as he continued his revival from the ‘enforcer’ phase of his career. He pitched the ball up and got it to nip back at the top of off stump time and time again, and the Pakistani batsmen seemed to have no answer. He continued his good performance into the limited overs leg as well, including some good captaincy in the T20 series win. In that limited overs leg we also were treated to an outstanding performance from Steven Finn. He picked up where he left off in the India ODIs and ran through the Pakistani top order. He appears to have added a yard of pace and some accuracy and there are many calling for him to be in the Test side. I think that might be a bit premature, I am always hesitant to try to apply ODI form to Tests, but at the same time I probably would not have dropped him from the Test side to begin with. The problem is that there is no one for him to replace. He certainly has not shown that he is a better bowler than Tim Bresnan, let alone Jimmy and Broad. I think for now he is still the fourth seamer, which means he is going to be carrying the drinks until someone is injured or England decide to bat Prior at six and Bresnan at seven. (And the latter is apparently never going to happen, even though it would also solve the problem of who to bat at six.)

As tempting as it would be to say that England won the tour 2-1, everyone knows that Tests count at least quintuple and that England lost the tour rather heavily. I have every confidence that the management will look most closely at the Tests when analysing the tour, but it is important the the media and fans do the same. We cannot say that KP is off the hook due to his ODI runs, nor can we say that Bopara is a Test number six. We cannot think that this was a good tour, or even a decent tour. Most importantly, we cannot think that anything short of a pair of comprehensive victories over Sri Lanka will redeem England. That willingness to gloss over flaws has become a defining characteristic of Indian cricket recently and it is almost certainly related to their loss of form. We must not allow it to happen in England as well.

England win by six/nine wickets

Suddenly I’m writing the words ‘England win’ a lot. A couple of nights ago the women’s side won their first T20 by six wickets. It was rather closer than it ought to have been, Anya Shrubsole took 5-11 (all five bowled or lbw) in four overs as the Kiwis finished on 80-9. It was at this point that I made the in hindsight ill-advised comment ‘should be a straightforward chase’ on Twitter. Needless to say we got bogged down and after losing a few wickets were actually behind the rate for a time. For the Kiwis, Kate Broadmore at one point had figures of 2.2-2-0-1. Unlike Shrubsole, however, she couldn’t take more than that one wicket and Sarah Taylor hit a composed and unbeaten 31 off 34 to see England home with six wickets and 14 balls to spare. Never in doubt… The second match of the series is tonight/tomorrow morning and whilst New Zealand will take heart from their bowling display I’m tipping England to win again.

The far more surprising win was for the men’s side. If I had known before the tour that there would be 3-0 scorelines in both the Test and ODI series I would have assumed that we had won the Tests and been hammered in the ODIs. As it was, England turned in one of their most comprehensive ever ODI wins away from home. Only three times previously have England played top tier opposition away from home and chased down a target with more balls to spare than the 76 balls to spare that they had in this match. The most recent was against South Africa in November 2009 when England lost three wickets en route to 121 off 31.2 overs. England also won with 94 balls remaining at the MCG in January 1979, a 40-over ODI in which Geoffery Boycott scored an unbeaten 39 off 107 deliveries. England took just 28.2 overs to chase down the 102 they needed for victory and I’m sure the crowd went home thinking that they got their money’s worth. I think a case could be made that this was a more comprehensive victory than any of those, however. England looked today like they could easily have chased down another hundred runs. There were standout performances from Cook and Finn again, but KP was the real star. He looked today like the KP of old, a man bristling with intent and for once not likely to give his wicket away. Once he got into his stride the only thing that looked like it might stop him from reaching three figures was if England ran out of runs to chase. As it was, Cook’s dismissal meant that KP could get to an unbeaten 111, his joint highest ODI score.

This puts England in a very rare position for overseas ODI series. Excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the last time England won an overseas ODI series by two or more matches was a 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand in 1992. If England can win the last match, it will be only the second time overseas and fifth time ever that England have won four or more matches in an ODI series.

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 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.

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.

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.

What changes should England make?

Very few, I think. The devil’s in the details, of course, otherwise this would just be a Tweet and not a full blog post. As I wrote yesterday, England’s problems were with the batting, but I don’t think any radical changes need to be made. It would be very out of character for either Strauss or Flower to make panic changes and I think that’s a good thing. It was one of the (many, many) differences between England and Australia a year ago that England only made one change that was not forced by injury. That said, the one change to drop Finn for Bresnan was a very successful one.

If England do want to make changes to the top six, one of the problems they face is that there is a surprising lack of batting depth in the squad. The only full time batsman in reserve is Ravi Bopara, though wicket-keeper Steve Davies has a first class average over 40. For all that I said about Eoin Morgan on the first and third days of the Test, I think to replace him with Bopara would be extremely foolish. Bopara has all the same problems that Morgan does, but he’s had several years now to in which to potentially overcome them and has failed to do so. Given that Morgan can play spin well (even if he does then get himself out) it seems incredibly unlikely that Bopara would represent an improvement. It would be possible to have Davies keep wicket and play Prior as a specialist batsman, but that would be gambling that Davies can out-bat Morgan and out-keep Prior. It’s possible that he could do both, but it is a big risk. If might be interesting to see how such a tactic plays out next time England have a dead rubber (hopefully not before June), but doing so in a vital Test would be ill-advised.

That does not mean that Morgan’s place is secure, however. There were many suggestions before the match that England play a fifth bowler in his place and his, and England’s, poor performance will only increase those calls. I’m still inclined to agree, although I don’t like the idea of shoring up a good bowling attack at the expense of a misfiring batting order. England’s top five, with the possible exception of KP, are better than they showed in Dubai and I think they ought to be backed to score runs on flat decks. In any case, the bowlers still showed an ability to score runs effectively so even without Bresnan a sixth batsman seems unnecessary. The bowlers were fantastic in difficult conditions, they restricted Pakistan to 338 all out on what still looked like a 400 wicket. If it had been in the first innings of the match instead of the second England would have been considered on top. That does not mean that another attacking option would go amiss, however. There were times, especially as the tail added over fifty on the third morning but also during the 100+ opening partnership, that a different type of bowler would have been very handy.

Even if England do not drop Morgan, I think Tremlett should be left out. (‘Rested’ if need be.) He was the least effective bowler for England; his tall bang-it-in style is not suited to the slow pitches. During the second morning Nasser Hussain was suggesting that he needed to pitch the ball up and try to skid if off the surface more. This is true, but it also describes very well the bowling of Graham Onions. He is a wicket-to-wicket bowler not too dissimilar to Junaid Khan who had great success against Sri Lanka. If England had him or Finn (who is also similar, but I don’t think as skiddy) in the attack in the first Test it would not have changed the result, but I think Pakistan would not have made as many runs as Strauss would have had something different at which to throw at their batsmen. I would definitely play at least one of them in Abu Dhabi. I would not play Monty, however. He performed very well in the warmup match, but I still don’t see him as an attacking option. I could be wrong of course, but especially in a four man attack I would prefer a fast bowler.

An interesting idea would be to drop KP for an extra bowler. He can take the match away from the opposition on his best day (see 202* at Lord’s) but more often he proves Boycott’s ‘not got a lot between the ears’ analysis correct. To drop him for a match may give his ego the kick it needs to make sure he comes out in the third Test and makes a couple of big scores. There’s no guarantee that he won’t come out in the second Test and make big scores, but I do not want to rely on him. It would be a brave move by England to drop him, but they have shown an ability to be brave before. My XI for the second Test is: Strauss*, Cook, Trott, Bell, Morgan, Prior†, Broad, Swann, Anderson, Finn, Onions. It gives an extra bowling option and is still not much of a tail. As far as what will happen (the above being only what I want to happen) the only change I would think likely would be to replace Tremlett with Finn, which I do think would be an improvement. I would prefer Onions, but Finn is above him in the pecking order and England like to stick to that.

Pakistan win by ten wickets

Today marks exactly 13 months since the end of the Perth test of the last Ashes series and England marked the occasion in an appropriate style. The first innings of this match was the first time we had been bowled out for under 200 since Perth and in a touching homage to the dual collapses of that match they only managed only 160 in the second innings here. Pakistan’s successful chase of 15 to win sealed England’s first defeat since that Perth Test as well.

As at Perth, the batsmen were the primary culprits in the defeat and today they were almost entirely culpable. The bowlers put in an admirable and impressive performance yesterday to keep the match within (theoretical) reach, but the batsmen threw it away completely. It was even the bowlers who avoided an innings defeat; Graeme Swann scored 39 and Jimmy Anderson had an unbeaten 15 to complement his 12 in the first innings. Graeme Swann actually scored more runs in the match than any of the top six batsmen and only one fewer than Matt Prior. Trott had a decent match too, he was unlucky to get out to a leg side strangle in the first innings, but looked composed for his 49 in the second. That said, he could have and probably should have stuck around to anchor an English resistance but got skittish with his half century looming and played an ill-disciplined shot outside off and was caught behind.

There may have been other victims of ill-fortune in the innings, Cook misplayed a hook for what seems like the first time in his career and I will have more on Strauss later, but by and large they have very little to excuse them. KP in particular needs to have someone take him by the collar and shout at him for a bit, or whatever it takes to make him realise the value of shot selection. His shot today was absolutely inexcusable; with England in trouble on 25-2 he came in and played a hook on nought and top edged the ball straight to the man at deep square leg. The fieldsman had been placed there for exactly that purpose in a ploy so transparent even a premiership footballer would have seen through it, but KP either missed it (very possible) or simply assumed he could beat it (also very possible). Either way it was one of the most stupid and irresponsible shots you will see, only Brad Haddin could hope to match it.

One of the consequences of the top order failure was that Eoin Morgan was given the chance to redeem himself for letting the side down in the first innings. Instead he played the exact same type of innings; he got in, looked settled and promising, then got out tamely. It is a continuation of a common theme; if the top five score well and put the side in a good position, Morgan can take the game away. When they fail, however, Morgan seems incapable of rescuing the side. Fortunately for Morgan and England the top order succeed a lot more often than they fail, but it does call into question the wisdom of having a batsman at number six who only scores runs when they are not needed. It is a very similar criticism to that which was levelled at Ian Bell for many years, but it wasn’t an unfounded criticism then and it isn’t now either. Bell worked on his temperament and is now one of England’s best batsmen. Morgan must do the same; right now he does not look like a Test calibre batsman. He must also do it quickly, as England have a very talented Lions squad and may not persist with Morgan for as long as they did with Bell.

I mentioned Strauss earlier; he was at the centre of a DRS controversy just before lunch. With England and Strauss each on six he tried to turn one down the leg side and was given out caught behind. Strauss reviewed it and the decision was upheld despite HotSpot showing nothing. Strauss may very well have been out, there was a noise and he took a bit of time in reviewing it, but that did not stop the predictable criticism of the DRS. The fact that Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal had been similarly given out despite the review earlier in the day added fuel to the debate with many labelling it as evidence against the DRS. Except it was no such thing, of course. Both batsmen had been given out by the on field umpire, Billy Bowden in both cases; the DRS made no difference. Without the DRS they would both still have been given out, fairly or otherwise. If the decisions were incorrect (which is not at all clear, especially for Strauss) then the fault is with the umpire who made the decision and it makes no sense to use that as an argument for why we should not have a review system. Needless to say this did not stop people from claiming that the DRS gave Strauss out.

All the DRS and batting commotion aside, we are left with the fact that England are now 0-1 down with two Tests left. The next one will be at Abu Dhabi before they return to Dubai for the third. The worry for England will be that they will be tailored for draws, as we saw in the Windies in 2009. Fortunately, England are resilient; we saw that clearly yesterday, if not so much today. Before today England had only lost four Tests since Kingston 2009 and each time they won the next one emphatically. The only caveat to that is the innings defeat at Jo’burg in 2010 which was the last in the series. England followed that defeat with six consecutive wins, but the first four were against Bangladesh. England will hope that the comparisons with Perth continue, however; they followed that defeat with three consecutive innings victories. These are not just meaningless filler stats. England respond well to defeat. They are masters at analysing flaws and working to correct them. That is not a guarantee of success in Abu Dhabi, of course, but only someone who has not watched any cricket in the past three years would automatically write England off.

Pakistan v England preview

The warmup matches are over and now it’s only four days until the first Test between England and Pakistan in Dubai. England have started the tour positively by winning both of the warmup matches, but there have been still been some clear weaknesses, especially in the middle order batting. It may be because they are having trouble adapting to the pitch, or it could just be rust because England have not played cricket for a while. We’ll know more as the series goes on.

The biggest positive from the two warmups for England must be the bowling. Even though Bresnan hasn’t been able to overcome his elbow injury, Finn, Tremlett, Onions and even Monty have put in good performances to stake their claims to replace him. Monty actually had the best figures from that quartet, taking 8-103 in the second warmup. I doubt England will play two spinners, especially in a four man attack, but Monty has made a strong case for inclusion, probably at the expense of Morgan. Tremlett and Onions are almost neck and neck after taking 4-62 and 4-90 in the second warmup, both of which are better than Finn’s match analysis in the first warmup. Finn is probably still the front-runner, it would have taken an exceptional performance by his competitors to overcome that, but Strauss and Flower can be comfortable in the knowledge that there are replacements available if he struggles. Given the gruelling conditions likely to confront England, I would be very surprised if they did not intentionally rotate some of the bowlers anyway.

The batting for England is more of a concern. Strauss, Cook and Trott have all made runs at some point during the first two warmups, but KP, Bell and Morgan averaged 12.9 between them with a top score of 39. This is troubling, but I don’t think it is a disaster. Ian Bell is a very talented player and has had considerable success in the past against Pakistan. He averages 68.8 against them, albeit ‘only’ 52.16 outside of England. Given his skill and history it is very likely that he will come good. KP and Morgan are more uncertain. KP can be a mercurial player, but he was in form last summer. Given that the pitches will favour batsmen one might think that he will find the going to be relatively easy, but he has struggled in his career in the subcontinent. In his career in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka he averages just 34.6, though he averaged over 80 in two matches in Bangladesh. Eoin Morgan is untried at the highest level, and has never played in a Test outside England, but his technique is said to be good against spin. He has a very inventive style of strokeplay, but he has not yet scored the runs to establish himself as a long term Test candidate. How he fares in this series could tell us quite a bit about if he is a Test batsman or not. Even if KP and Morgan do struggle it is unlikely to be fatal for England. Four firing batsmen can usually carry two out of form ones and when adds Prior and Broad to the mix England’s batting still looks excellent.

For Pakistan, this is their first series against top opposition since they played South Africa in November of 2010. They have won six of their subsequent ten Tests, but drew both matches in that series. Both their bowlers and batsmen performed exceptionally in 2011; their top six averaged just under fifty with the bat and their bowlers averaged under 27 with the ball. Four of their batsmen averaged over 45 last year, and two of those averaged well over fifty, whilst all of their regular bowlers averaged under 30. The caveat to this is that the best team they played was Sri Lanka, and they still almost lost one of those matches. Furthermore, they have recalled Wahab Riaz for this series despite his averaging over 40 last year.

Pakistan have played fairly defensive minded cricket in their last few Tests. It probably cost them a win against Sri Lanka, but may serve them well against England. Whilst England have bowled brilliantly recently, one of their big advantages has been their ability to induce poor shots by choking off scoring. With Pakistan playing cautiously anyway they may not be as susceptible to that tactic, which could in turn make life very difficult for England’s bowlers. At the same time, with Cook and Trott digging in for England it could make it very hard for Pakistan to win. (As well as making the play slow to a crawl, which no one wants.)

Whilst Pakistan are playing well and know the conditions well, I think England are simply a better side. Even if Morgan and KP do not fire we still have six players solid batsmen in the side and a very talented, well drilled and utterly relentless bowling attack. In many ways it doesn’t really matter who replaces Bresnan, England are still going to have an exceptional attack with no real weak point. Going back to the last Ashes they have had 12 Tests in which they have choked the life out of some of the most famous and accomplished batsmen, with only Dravid and Hussey managing to defy them. I think England may still need a Test to get properly acclimatised, but will come back well after that. From what we’ve seen in the warmups I think they can bowl Pakistan out twice and will win the series 2-0.