This game is shaping up to a massive defeat. Eng will get 200+ ahead, meaning we'd have to get c. 400 to make a game of it in the 2nd dig. Forget about that. We dont play bounce at all well.
I am a level headed analyst of cricket, and adore Pakistan, but on these types of pitches (fast, bouncy) we dont have a bastman who can stamp his authority on it. We are not a bad batting line up, but this glaring omission means we will never have the stability India enjoy with the likes of Sehwag and Dravid, brilliant on bouncy wkts.
Esp hard is the fact that our own bowlers who may exploit these conditons are nigh on dead.
A bad day at the office. We will Inshallah come back tomorrow. Can't believe that we made a hero of Harmisson today. But than Pakistan team is known to make heros out of Zeros. OK, OK he is not a zero but his recent performance was nothing to shout about.
we need exceptionally brilliant individual performance to make a comeback in this match. But sadly I dont see anyone (maybe Kaneria to some extent) who can do this. We have batsmen to do this but I am afraid by the time they will be asked to do this, it will be too late
Captain bhai I got see the highlights of the 2nd test match and specifically the way Pakistani batsmen got out, exclude Farhat (gone case) Akmal and others provided the fact that corridor of uncertanity with tinge of green can be the reciepe of disaster of Pakistani batsman, it was not the Pitch, it was pathetic way of getting out (Younis, Akmal..etc)
and come to think of Afridi decision to retire from test was a good one, too bad the crowd love 'em alot
Harmison was never underrated by us I think, and he bowled well on a pitch that suited him right. Too bad we don't have a Shoaib or Asif, or we would have most probably seen 5 wickets down for England today.
There was bounce yaar, I saw every ball. Harmison was getting the ball to spit of a length, as was Mahmood. Our bowlers are short, and medium paced with the exe. of Sami.
The odd ball stayed down, but the pitch was hard and fast, like a WACA wkt. We just lacked the bowlers to exploit it.
Umar Gul is over 6’2. Not short. Thats good enough height to bounce the ball on any kind of pitch. This pitch is tailor made for his kind of bowlers, who rely on swing and bounce, but sadly he didn’t put the ball in the right areas, hopefully he will bounce back.
And Sami…you can get him to bowl to batsmen on grass and he will still get smacked around.
What a fiasco, this is the sort of performance all Pakistan fans were afraid of when we were about to leave for England. Fast, bouncy wicket, batsmen collapse, and we don't the firepower to to cause trouble let alone get wickets.
The pace bowling, on conditions which suit them, has been shockingly poor. It is fair to say right now that Pakistan possesses the worst opening pair in both batting AND bowling in world cricket. And the sad thing is, we have accepted it, which is why there was absolutely no change in the team.
Most worrying of all is that attitude has been indifferent. No fight shown at all, not by the batsmen when the wickets were tumbling and not by the bowlers.
Like Saby said, we need a epic individual performance just to get back in the game. Either, one of our bowlers run thru the England batting line up, or we bat out of our skins to get a monstrous 3rd innings score. Both options look bleak at the moment.
Zaheer impressed by ground staff’s equipment
By our correspondent
MANCHESTER: It rained on Wednesday morning in Manchester but the ground staff at Old Trafford here was not concerned.
The second Test between Pakistan and England was to get underway here just over 24 hours later and a similar situation in Pakistan would have made life difficult for the people in charge of the field.
But Peter Marron, Old Trafford’s pitch curator, and his team had nothing to worry about. They had an ever-ready hover cover to rely on. They say it costs 100,000 pounds but add that it is worth every penny of it.
And Pakistan team’s manager Zaheer Abbas strongly agrees. “They have really impressive equipment here,” Zaheer told this correspondent before the start of the second Test. “See how well maintained the outfield is and the wicket looks really good. It’s all because of the equipment they use,” said the former Test cricketer.
Zaheer was so impressed with the immaculate condition of the Old Trafford field that he has decided to talk to PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan about buying a complete set of equipment
Good idea if they want to buy the equipment. However if they do go ahead with the purchase will they be able to afford the equipment for all the major venues or just one? I suppose they have plenty of money to spend on hiring short term coaches so can’t see any reason why they can’t afford for all venues.
^If england were losing, then the ground would have been soaked and pitch ruined...lol...I can't watch Pakistan losing so I'm going to watch SA v. SL instead.
