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.

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.

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 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 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.