Jonty Rhodes must be crying after the pathetic showing of fielding by our players esp. Imran Farhat and Kaneria.
Well, to tell you the truth Umer Bhaiyya, most predicted a little to no change in the fielding setup and the drills that were developed by Rhodes which were sustained overnight, but a simple knowledge of going back to the basics and at least putting your pedal to the medal was one of the things that was expected of the team of this standard.
Morning session, combined with post-lunch session, saw lazy blunders from Inzamam and Danish, where the race went on as to who would reach the ropes first; the ball or them. Both, more or less, managed to touch the advertising boards on two ocassions, alongwith the ball, which was traveling behind at half their speed.
For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why in the mother earth do we refuse to place the fielder in third-man position? Literally! Look back at home series with India, England, tour of Sri Lanka and now here in England - very rarely, under extreme and unknown conditions known only to Inzamam and Woolmer, have we actually placed a governing body in that area, but in other scenarios where, us, the opposition, have been unable to break the batters' barrier, we have went on to the extent of placing numerous slip and close-in fielders without any sort of presence in the third-man region. Infinite boundaries are continuously and heavily scored in that area, since last year, ball after ball, over after over, but never have we actually thought about controlling the run-rate through the (lack of) brilliance from our own field placings, which is why it creates an extra bundle of pressure on the bowlers to bowl within themselves inside a tight corridor and when such things don't happen over a period of time, things are bound to slip from your grip, which precisely was one of the many cases on the first day.
^ One of the key reasons (besides dropped catches) that England was able to dominate even after losing quick wickets was the brisk run rate that they had established early on.
Like dhobi bhai said this was due to poor field placings but more importantly poor bowling. Figures don't tell the true story, anyone who watched the game will know how pathetic Sami's spells were. He never troubled but instead provided a steady supply of four balls.
atleast before jhonty rhodes shone on our team we did not spil such easy chances…
i think imran farhat’s failure is perhaps because rhodes might have suggested that a fielder be on the move as soon as the ball is hit, hence u will find that farhat was never balanced while taking the catches…
had it been for the old lazy fielding tehniques, farhat wud not have come before inzi to try for an impossible (from pakistani fielding perspective) catch and when cook edged one to him, he wud have held it steadily intead of falling to his left, trying to put up a show of acrobatics…
i think it was that ‘extra’ effort in the fileding which caused so many catches going down…
I agree with both of you. The Jonty Rhodes stunt was never expected to extract miracles from Pak team but just to polish the basics for Pak team fielding. When you place only 10 days of importance on fielding, well you have the results in front of you.
Armughal jee; I think you touched a really good point about Imran Farhat's blunder in the field. It might be that he was putting Jonty's perspective in action and his laziness before Jonty's appointment would have helped grab a catch but I think the movement and thinking of Farhat were just lazy. Not only that, we saw Kaneria dropping a dolly as well. Also, as Dhobi jee said, what does Inzi and Woolmer need to see to employ a fieldsman @ the 3rd man position? I mean it's mean time that we get these things corrected or it might be too late for our ambitious dreams of WC 07.
Umer
Kuch nahi hota yaar, so what if we had a bad 'Day 1' of the Test in the field, 4 days baaki hain, lol. but we definitely are on a backfoot already, we'll have to put up a challenging 1st innings total after England declares/gets out.
One bad day and the doom and gloom merchants are out in force. Isn't it amazing that the "brainless" captain has taken Pakistan to number 2 spot. I am sure a lot of posters will now say that the rankings are rubbish and pakistan doesn't deserve it.
They have long tail hopefully we can take 3-4 quick wickets this morning which is highly unlikely, if we restrict them to less than 500, it wud give us a glimmer of hope.
One positive from yesterday is that England couldnt score at a brisk rate considering modern standards so they havent ran away from the game as yet and Pakistan can still make a comeback in this match.
94.5Mohammad Sami to Cook, OUT, GONE! Crackerjack from Sami, full, straight and quick, swung back into the left-handed Cook who was too late on it. Cook gone for 105 – terrific start for Pakistan
The master tactician Inzi (who has led Pakistan up the rankings with his strategies), has opted for a 7-2 offside field for the new batsman Bell. Just the two slips with the new ball AND new batsman on the crease. And still the boundaries are flowing.
And if we thought Gul’s morning spell yesterday couldn’t get any worse, then he has proved us all wrong this morning.
Commentators commenting on the very apparent lack of homework done by Pakistan. Woolmer
*Mohammad Sami to Collingwood, no run, how’s that? Gone surely, no – huge appeal from Sami and the wicketkeeper. Collingwood edges it behind and, for some reason, Simon Taufel turns it down. That, frankly, was a dreadful decision and Collingwood survives. Inzamam-ul-Haq is currently chewing on his fingernails, and who can blame him? *
how in the world did Taufal miss that??? that was clear out! and a very close LBW decision wasnt given in favor of Afridi in the very next over by Afridi. With all this fortune, no wonder Collingwood has got his highest test score
