England v Pakistan, 2nd Test, Day 4: Operation Destruction Completed Successfully

 

England v Pakistan

2^nd Test

Day 4: Operation Destruction Completed Successfully

July 25^th  2016

The petulant whining about the non-enforcement of the Follow-On has been shown to be as ridiculous as it was irrelevant. It was all a bit wet, which was the one thing that the weather was not: the rain, which the critics assured us even this morning would wipe a huge swathe out of play both today and tomorrow, did not turn up. The BBC weather forecaster had promised in the morning that the weather would be fine and, like Alistair Cook, was vindicated. Despite losing a session to rain, England sealed a massive win with almost four sessions to spare.

Pakistan’s English-language Dawn newspaper was vitriolic in its ridicule of England’s decision not to enforce the Follow-On. This might have been out of frustration as much as anything. They would have known that Pakistan’s one, slim hope of survival was to Follow-On (against an attack that would soon be a bowler short) and watch them tire progressively on a flat pitch. It would only have taken a single stand. Instead, England took to their task to grind down Pakistan’s own 4-man attack and destroy the confidence of Yasir Shah very seriously. Just look at the figures for the conclusion of the England innings:

·        86 runs from the last 10 overs of the innings.

·        75 runs added from 9 overs in 40 minutes in the morning.

·        A partnership of 105 in 85 balls (14.1 overs) at 7.4 runs per over between Cook and Root to bring on the declaration.

The fans predicted confidently that Pakistan would bowl wide, to a defensive field and slow scoring to a crawl, taking time out of the game. As it was, they seemed too utterly defeated to do anything about the England scoring rate, which accelerated steadily as the declaration approached, despite putting seven men on the boundary.

Shah’s match figures are an eye-watering 63-6-284-1: unable in this Test either to take wickets, or to slow down the scoring on a pitch on which England seriously considered playing two spinners (for comparison, the much-criticised Moeen Ali, had match figures of 26.2-1-131-5).

As an exercise in demoralisation it recalls Mike Gatting’s destruction of Laxman Sivaramakrishnan in India in 1984/85, when after winning the 1^st Test almost single-handed with 12 wickets, he took an expensive 6-for to give him a third consecutive 6-for in an innings, in the first innings of the Second Test, before Gatting destroyed his confidence so totally that he was never again effective, even at First Class level.

Misbah-ul-Haq, who is proving to be a diplomat, as well as a fine captain and a generous opponent, admitted that the pitch did little and that Pakistan should have scored 400 in the first innings and plenty in the second innings, but were short on confidence. What the Pakistani confidence levels will be like now, after this horrible pummelling, does not bear thinking of. Pakistan will look at how no fewer than nine batsmen passed 20 in the Test, yet only Misbah reached 50 and he was dismissed for 52 in the first innings.

Needing to survive 186 overs, Pakistan were 25-2 in the eleventh over – from there, there was no way back. Mohammed Hafeez and Younis Khan gave some hope that the game could be taken into the final day, but the danger of a brain-fade was always there and the desire to hit Moeen Ali out of the stadium did for both of them. Moeen Ali’s lack of success in recent Tests turned out to be his biggest weapon, as batsmen failed to treat him with sufficient respect and threw their wickets away in a macho attempt to emulate Misbah’s treatment of him from the 1^st Test. Those match figures of 5-131 will do Moeen’s case no harm, even if he was, inevitably, upstaged by Joe Root’s first over of the series (a wicket maiden).

Even the bad news for England may turn out to have a silver lining. Ben Stokes looks to have done real damage to his calf muscle, but his likely absence will allow England to give a game to one of a long list of players fighting to get into the attack. With Edgbaston unlikely to favour spin, the temptation to play Adil Rashid will be resisted, instead, England will have to decide the relative merits of: Wood (back playing for the Lions and bowling well), Finn (surely he cannot be brought back so soon), Plunkett (who only lost his place due to injury), Ball (who did nothing wrong in the 1^st Test and looked the part) and possibly even Chris Jordan (back from the IPL and bowling with vim and vigour). Plenty of bowlers are banging on the door and shouting for a chance to play.

Personally, I would go for Plunkett, with his extra pace and bounce, to shake up some nervous Pakistani batsmen, as the word is that probably Mark Wood has not bowled enough overs to be ready for a 5-day Test (always assuming that a Test goes into a fifth day in this series).

A couple of days ago I suggested that this series was starting to resemble England v India in 2014. I stick by that suggestion. We will see if it still looks that way after the 3^rd Test. Either way, the series is now guaranteed to be live for the Final Test, at The Oval, starting on August 11^th.

England v Pakistan, 1st Test, Day 2: Something Odd is Happening at Lord’s

 

England v Pakistan

1^st Test

Day 2: Something Odd is Happening at Lord’s

 July 16^th  2016

The script for this match said that no side has taken 20 wickets on a dead Lord’s surface all season. The surface looked a good one for batting and Pakistan’s efforts yesterday seemed to suggest that a first innings score of around 450 would be par.

In other words, accept a rather boring draw and move on to Old Trafford.

Barring the intervention of the weather, or of Alistair Cook, who is courting a one match ban for a slow over-rate, managing to slow the England over rate still further to a level that the 1980s West Indians would have envied, there will be a result, quite probably on the fourth day.

From 282-4 late on the first day, 13 wickets have fallen for the addition of 310 runs. First Pakistan and then England have made batting look high risk. The fact that there has also been some pretty poor bowling at times makes the clatter of wickets even harder to understand. It is the sort of situation that would make Marvin the Paranoid Android of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" complain "Oh dear! Reality is on the blink again!"

Right now, there are two differences between the side: the first is that Misbah-ul-Huq has been the only player able to make a major score (Misbah’s 114 trumped Cook’s 81) and the second is that Yasir Shah has sown seeds of doubt where only certainty should have existed. Although Chris Woakes’s 6-70 is better on paper, Shah’s 5-64 has turned the game.

What possessed Joe Root to take a wild swing and sky a catch when he and Cook had put on 110 and were making batting look easy, we do not know. Up until then the Pakistan bowling was poor and, when the bowlers did induce a mistake, the fielding was worse. Once Root had committed hari-kiri when a major score was there for the taking, Yasir Shah decided that his best course was not to rely on his fielders: three LBWs and Jonny Bairstow bowled. Mohammad Amir took his cue from Yasir Shah and removed Cook bowled off the inside edge: when you cannot rely on your wicket-keeper or fielders to catch anything, bowleds and LBWs are the best recourse.

It should not have been this way. In eleven overs and four balls Pakistan had gone from a commanding 282-4 to a scarcely credible 316-9. Thoughts of 450 evaporated like referendum pledges, although Pakistan’s last wicket pair were still able to add what may ultimately be a match-winning 23 runs.

When England batted, all the doubts returned. Alex Hales’s leaden feet were more the Hales of the South African Tests than the swashbuckling warrior who battered Sri Lanka. Vince came, had Michael Vaughan purring at his artistry and went, once again, when looking set: 70 runs in 5 innings have convinced no one that he is the batsman that England need. Gary Balance got a superb ball, but all the talk will be of how his failure proves that the selectors were wrong to bring him back. And Moeen Ali, who owed England some runs, looked awfully unlucky to fall with umpire’s call on point of impact and on hitting the stumps, plus a spike on Snicko that the TV umpire thought was caused possibly by his spikes scraping the ground just at the moment that ball passed bat. Lest we forget, Jake Ball was pretty fortunate to get Azhar Ali yesterday so, as usual, these things have evened-up.

Each time a batsman seemed to be getting things under control, a wicket fell. The upshot is that, with Chris Woakes playing calmly and Stuart Broad hanging on, England are 86 behind on a pitch expected to favour the bowlers in the fourth innings and desperately need to reach parity tomorrow morning. If they are to do it, Chris Woakes will almost certainly have to surpass his best Test score by some distance and Stuart Broad will need to stay with him for at least an hour in the morning: it looks unlikely right now. At very worst, England need to reach 300 to feel that they are still in the game.

Right now, you have to feel that this game is Pakistan’s match to lose. By the end of the 3^rd Day we may well be seeing the end-game approach.