Now this is is some serious recovery. Pakistan still not out of woods yet but what an amazing come back to bring this match where it is now. We were done and dusted for good measure yesterday but whoa! Once again our bowlers stood up in place of our batters but they didnt disappoint in second innings either.. not yet anyway.
Fawad Alam, awesome innings, inspiring stuff from him!
Younis has so far proved to be an inspirational captain! The way Fawad spoke of him and about that tape ball prophecy, he is not afraid to put infants in swimming pool and letting them learn how to swim. Great stuff
Oh come on, look at their performance in teh first innings, the pitch is deteriorating and with our attack any lead over 200 should be defendable. Batting is our weakness not bowling. So lets not hype it out of proportion.
I still think 500 score (or 350 lead) is desirable. 450 (or 300 lead) is a must. My point is why concede a good position to Sri Lanka after having worked so hard to get us where we are now. There is still so much time left in this game. The pitch is only getting flat and slow and if our batters get into a comfort zone too early on day3 thinking that 200-250 w'd be enough it w'd be like shooting themselves in the foot.
It is Pakistan not SriLanka who are desperate to win here. SriLanka won't mind a draw here because they still have that 1-0 lead. And with the weather sometimes in Sri Lanka the next test or atleast a significant part of it maybe rained off and it will only be us then ruing a missed golden opportunity in the second test
Are you that old?? 50+?? Hope you'll accept my apologies for any comment I might have made in the past. :)
dude - Ehsan bhai is one of the oldest (read "learned") guppies on this site... he's mentioned it numerous times that the picture in his avatar is his grand daughter - mashaAllah :)
I still think 500 score or 350 lead is desirable. 450 is a must. My point is why concede a good position to Sri Lanka after having working so hard to get us where we are now. There is still so much time left in this game. The pitch is only getting flat and slow and if our batters get into a comfort zone too early on day3 thinking that 200-250 w'd be enough it w'd be like shooting themselves in the foot.
It is Pakistan not SriLanka who are desperate to win here. SriLanka won't mind a draw here because they still have that 1-0 lead. And with the weather sometimes in Sri Lanka the next test or atleast a significant part of it maybe rained off and it will only be us then ruing a missed golden opportunity in the second test
I don't see the reason for making that big a score... keep in mind that it's a delicate balance that needs to be maintained to show the opposition that they have a challenging total that is doable in the time that they have remaining. So if Pak finishes its batting or declares around lunch on Day 4, SL will have a day and a half - which is just enough to make a score of 350 to 400, and they'll be interested in trying to win this match. Our bowlers will then have a good contest on their hands.
Anything more than 400 will put SL on the defensive and they might just try to draw the match. Remember that their batting hasn't exactly clicked against us either, so they're going to be cautious as well.
I don't see the reason for making that big a score... keep in mind that it's a delicate balance that needs to be maintained to show the opposition that they have a challenging total that is doable in the time that they have remaining. So if Pak finishes its batting or declares around lunch on Day 4, SL will have a day and a half - which is just enough to make a score of 350 to 400, and they'll be interested in trying to win this match. Our bowlers will then have a good contest on their hands.
Anything more than 400 will put SL on the defensive and they might just try to draw the match. Remember that their batting hasn't exactly clicked against us either, so they're going to be cautious as well.
I meant 450 score and 300 lead atleast. Remember the 150 first innings deficit
MASHA ALLAH so far a good start by Pakistan.. 200/1 in 57th over.... Fawad again batting great..already had hit 4 glorious fours and couple of two's :)..
very steady start from both Younis and Fawad mashaAllah - Pak 221/1... there have already been a few good boundaries from both, and Younis got past his 50 - hoping he'd go on to make a 100 or more... and there would be someone else who follows his lead over the next day and a half. It'd be great to see three centurions - can't remember if I've ever seen that in Pak's innings.
lead of 100 comes up for Pak... 251/1 with Fawad nearing his 150 Younis living a little dangerously at 68... last shot carried to first slip but went for four.
Ive been watching the game too Lucid. Nice to hear Waqar talk about old games on this ground. I remeber that game against Aus too, Pakistan made 274 in the 4th innings chasing 316… ohh man, that was so close.(& we lost the nest two games in sharjah)
Fawad Alam had the tenth highest aggregate for all teams in history in a debut test at lunch.
He still is a long way from the highest aggregate on debut for a Pakistan player. That is held by Yasir Hameed who made a total of 275 in his debut test. His total of 164 is 2 runs behind Khalid “Billy” Ibadullah, who was the first pakistan player to score more than 100 runs on debut or an aggregate of 100 in a test.
^ Yasir made 170 in his test debut so Fawad only needs 7 more runs to beat the record. He probably wont beat the 275 record but lets hope he beats 170. :)
