Re: Pakistan v England test and ODI series - LahoriMunda's daily diary
LM's view of the first day of second test:
Pakistan** won the toss and decided to bat**
300 for 4 (81.0 overs) (Inzamam 80*, Afridi 67*, Yousuf 78)
What started off as a fine morning for England quickly turned from bad to worse. On an absolutely flat batting pitch England bowlers bowled with discipline and took three early wickets, courtesy of some irresponsible batting and some fine fielding. First to go was Salman Butt who looked solid up to the point of his dismissal before attempting a drive away from his body and edging the ball to Jones for a regulation catch. That’s Salman’s 3rd dismissal in as many innings with the same shot. He gets a lot of runs from that shot too but he needs to just start playing a little closer to his body. Younis Khan came in and looked untroubled until an irresponsible and lazy shot by the vice captain ended his innings. He looped a leg side ball straight to Kevin Pieterson for a simple catch. Shoaib Malik was the third wicket to fell in that session, courtesy of a brilliant catch by Freddie Flintoff. Shoaib played an uppish off drive, looke to be in the gap and heading for a 4 until Flintoff came in from nowhere and took an absolute blinder. He dived full stretch to his right and took the catch one handed. Shoaib had the look of sheer disbelief as he slowly made his way back to the pavilion.
What started off as a promising morning for Pakistan had quickly gone disastrous. After Shoaib’s wicket the Pakistan captain joined hands with his former deputy Mohammad Yousaf on the crease and after irresponsible batting in the first test Mohammad Yousaf tried to make up for it in this match. He played elegantly, sweetly timing the ball against all bowlers, yet again reminding what he is capable of when in flow. The two most experienced batsmen of the team took the team for a worrying position to a position of satisfaction until Mohammad Yousaf was unlucky to be adjudged caught by Bell off his own bowling. The replays suggested that ball had touched the ground before Bell took that catch but umpire had already given the decision.
Shahid Afridi came in to bat at the fall of Yousaf and straight away proved that the decision to not play him in the first game was not justified. To much appreciation of the crowd Afridi belted the English bowlers all over the park and hit 4 monstrous sixes in his entertaining innings of 67 of just 62 balls. At close Pakistan had moved onto exactly 300 runs for the loss of 4 wickets and Inzamam and Afridi were on the crease. If Afridi stays in the same mood tomorrow and survives till lunch Pakistan will be in a very commanding position. We need to post a big first innings total, something definitely around 450. At this time we are in a position to accomplish that but we are all well aware of the not so uncommon collapse of our batting line up so until tomorrow let’s keep our fingers crossed. Day 1: Advantage **Pakistan**.