Comments on the day’s play here, as well as the other international fixtures being played today if they take your fancy.
I look forward to hearing from you….. this is going to be an interesting, interesting game.
As I post, Pakistan are batting and are 40 odd for no loss.
Being Outside Cricket 
Good overrate. Almost 15 in the first hour.
Ali gets Hafeez second ball after the drinks break. 51/1.
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Nice to see Shan Masood get to fifty. Some English sources were very dismissive of him after Abu Dhabi but anyone who saw his century in Pallekele knows he can play. He seems an opener who enjoys the ball coming on to the bat more.
Rashid finally on after nine overs from Ali.
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Well, that did for Masood!
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Meanwhile, S. Ravi is umpiring in the India – South Africa ODI. So not only have Shiv Sena managed to run out an excellent Pakistani umpire (Dar), they have also gotten the worst Indian umpire in some time to officiate.
Also nice to see the Afghan bowlers giving Zim a bit of a workout. 13/2 after 7 overs, with Dawlat Zadran picking both the wickets.
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It was an ok session from England. Stunning catch by Bairstow and Stokes is now really starting to show that he has wicket taking capacity. It is not as though he hasn’t had this, but he had a fairly long spell, starting in the home summer of 2014 until the New Zealand series where he rarely took any wickets. He clearly has a bit of an x factor as a player but is a little too inconsistent. Masood has played well after looking shaky versus the shortball earlier on (and indeed in Abu Dhabi).
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This is impressive stuff from the Windies. They can still do well. Just that they are not consistent enough however In terms of purely swing bowling, Taylor on his day, looks as good as Anderson. But has 124 wickets at 33.44.
Anderson bowling lovely again. Closing in on the all time greats?
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He’ll always be somewhere short of an all-time great in international terms, not least that his performances over the first part of his career were too far short of that in terms of consistency and nous. However his skills since then are those of a truly high class practitioner and cetainly an England great.
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93/1 in the middle session. Good, tough, old-fashioned Test cricket. Pitch has a touch more than the First Test but only a touch. Very good spell from Stokes.
Misbah nicked one between first and second slip and neither went for it which always looks bad (although on replay it probably wouldn’t have quite carried). Misbah also had a strange hack at Rashid just before tea that didn’t quite carry to mid-wicket. Younis edged one from Broad through first slip at knee height but there wasn’t a first slip because England had just switched to ‘funky fields’. Ouch.
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In Sri Lanka, West Indies seem to be employing a new tactic to avoid losses: don’t bother about the overrate at all. We’re 71 overs worth of play in (including the change-over), after 6 hours.
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Surely they’ll get the captain banned for that. That’s pathetic, unless they’ve spent a whole load of time mucking about with the sightscreens.
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Some batting stats:
1) Misbah’s currently on 73 – he’s scored 2 off Anderson and Broad (and 12 off all the seamers).
2) Misbah has just hit Rashid for a couple of sixes taking his Test career tally to 58 and past Wasim Akram into second in the all-time Pakistan list. Younis Khan is top with 60.
3) This match contains the top three Test run scorers currently playing – Cook, Younis and…. Ian Bell. With Chanderpaul, Sanga and Clarke now gone Bell is in the top three! ABDV is 31 runs behind (with 39 fewer innings) then Amla is nearly 1000 runs behind and it’s a long gap back to Ross Taylor next.
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Those stats tell you more about the longevity of Bell and Cook. It says less about their qualities other than longevity. I doubt Selvey rates Bell as the best #3 – Amla is probably going to take that honour, even though he has not batted at #3 since becoming the captain (which will be a Mike Selvey breaking news story when England land in South Africa).
Sri Lanka is playing a Test at the moment, and only 2 of the eleven players have played in more than 25 Tests: Mathews (this is his 54th) and Herath (his 65th).
BTW, after Amla it is McCullum (6008 runs), and then Ross Taylor with not even 5000 runs. After Taylor it is Misbah (just over 4100), and Mathews. Warner, Samuels and Azhar Ali are the only other ones left in the top 200 of all time, who are still playing. Oh to get in the top 200, you need 3374 runs or more. All of which points to the fact that most teams are rebuilding, or hardly get any fixtures (Zimbabwe and Bangladesh; Tamim Iqbal has 3118 runs in his 42-match career, and that run tally is a best for a Bangladeshi batsman).
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Aargh, how did I miss BMac?! Otherwise, my point was mostly about how Bell is now a senior statesman but never seems to be seen as such. Also, how the generation of batsmen who dominated the noughties have passed without it perhaps quite truly sinking in that they’ve gone.
Misbah passed another statistical milestone – his century is his 7th as Pakistan captain, equaling Inzamam’s record. Selvey will presumably castigate him for batting at No.5 like he did another international captain recently. Or perhaps not.
Generally, I thought today very similar to Day One of the First Test (and not just on the scoreboard although the scores are virtually identical, 286/4 playing 282/4). The seamers bowled well offering some threat and keeping the SR down but Pakistan could sit on them confident they could make up the runs off the spinners. England need a much better Day Two than in Abu Dhabi which was their worst day of the match.
Also some words for Buttler who’s been keeping well and for Asad Shafiq who played an important knock at a tricky time (if he’d got out, England were only Sarfraz away from getting into Pakistan’s very shaky tail).
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After a last over, counter-attack from Misbah who goves from 87 to 100 in really quick time I now can’t help feeling that Pakistan has the edge. The pitch is a bit more bowler friendly than Abu Dhai from what I can see but more than anything I just think there is a bit more in the Pakistan attack with the introduction of Shah and an England batting line-up that won’t fancy a two pronged Pakistan spin attack that will likely bowl plenty of overs with a bit more to work with.
Sorry to sound a little bit negative.
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I agree. England’s much vaunted middle order (where there are no vacancies for a certain batsman who must never be named) are going to have to step up. It’s unlikely Cook will repeat what he scored in the last test match. Bell is out of form, Butler can’t seem to buy a run, and Bairstow looks unconvincing.
Never mind KP, even Taylor can’t get into this great middle order. Snark*
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You are today’s focus of our fan club’s ire. Enjoy.
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Oh goody! May as well give them something else to get upset about then. This is the last paragraph of Tregaskis Match report from the first test last week……
“During the closing moments of day five, Phil Tufnell on TMS suggested to Ed Smith, in a hesitant voice reminiscent of Oliver Twist asking for more gruel, that there may have been a case for thinking Cook could have kicked on a bit during the later part of his innings. Smith dismissed the suggestion, replying “that’s just the way he plays.” How attitudes change in 18 months.”
Almost every week Smith, without realizing the irony of what he is saying sticks his foot in his mouth.
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Thought you might appreciate it.
I genuinely don’t have a problem with batsmen scoring 263 (batter is what I put on my fish) so we are in agree to disagree mode. There is a school of thought that questions its one paced nature but that is his role.
However, on FICJAM you are pushing at an open door.
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I have no problem with the way Cook batted for most of his innings, but when he had gone past 200,and England past 400, surely a funky captain, who wants to play a new positive type of cricket could have looked to see how He could have put pressure back onto Pakistan.
To quote dear old Ritchie….”do what your opponent least wants you to do.” Was Cook playing for himself , and dreaming of a triple?
If according to Selvey this was one of the greatest innings of all time, I think it needed to be a bit more inventive at the latter point. Of course, if people just excepted it as a one paced innings by a one paced batsman, and not pretend he is a genius we would not have these problems.
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I think the pessimism is quite understandable. Admittedly only a few Test matches have been played here, but the highest first innings (out of 4) score to result in a loss was Sri Lanka’s 230-odd. Coincidentally, there have been just 3 higher first innings totals than what Pakistan currently have on the board. And 5 first innings totals that were all substantially lower.
Moeen and Rashid are going for 4+ an over. Which is somewhat understandable on day 1, but you feel that Babar and Yasir Shah are simply better bowlers in these conditions. Which is not a reason to crucify either Moeen or Rashid, but is a good reason to temper expectations.
If Pakistan get close to 400, England will do well to draw this. Shah will make a huge difference, especially when he can bowl in tandem with Babar, and / or some of the parttimers Pakistan can call upon. Malik took match figures of 4/122 in the previous Test. And while he may have been helped by the batting in England’s second innings (and hurt by some poor fielding), those are still good figures for someone who scored nearly 250 runs in that match.
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Mike Selvey in his match report is already blaming the toss, and absolving Cook from all responsibility for the result. Never mind the fact that winning the toss has resulted in three wins, and three losses. One win, despite losing the toss, was by Pakistan against England. And one of those wins was by South Africa, almost 2 years ago (that match started October 23, 2013).
So obviously, the toss decides the result.
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It was a good return for Wood (14-6-26-1), no arguing that. But Selvey seems to imply that only England have ever to face such pitches, which is frankly insulting to every cricket aficionado, who bothers to follow more than just their own team.
And while Wood bowled well, bigging him up for his returns misses the 31-18-39-3 Johnson produced here a year ago. Or is it only England that have to adjust to play in foreign conditions, and the likes of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand all consider the UAE their cricketing homes? Apparently they do.
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Just beat me to it on Selvey’s whinging about the toss!
He’s also written approximately eight-and-a-half less paragraphs about Misbah’s century than the last one by a captain this series (and I’m referring to his report at the end of Day Three – not his report on 263 which of course warrants more coverage than a century).
No consideration of what he’d have bet on it, no feudal lord comparisons, no sweat level checks, no deconstruction of his celebration, no deconstruction of his technique, nothing on what he learnt in the school choir….
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Yes, but did Misbaah hold his bat in the right way? Did he take his hemet off, or leave it on for celebration? Was he telegenic, with fim star looks that would sell Waitrose finest duck eggs?
I take it as visiting captain Cook called on the toss? So he called wrong…Again! Selvey must have missed that bit. Now of course a coin toss is a coin toss and it’s a 50 50 call but if your going to blame it you should point out who called it wrong.
So is Selvey saying he just wants games played on Birmingham and Nottingham type pitches with no toss?
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Selfry just loves a lost toss off of Cookie….. (I’ll get m’dirty raincoat)
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I am amazed that the media have forgotten how Misbah bats. It was no surprise to me that he took Moeen for 14 runs in the last over. On the last tour to the UAE he showed that his approach was to block, block, block and then whack the spinners. Whenever a spinner came on, he would hit a six. It is simply how he bats. Why do they not remember this? A guy who used to be on the Test Match Sofa twitter feed called himself Misbah ul-Whack.
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Hey… FICJAM does rugby without becoming a Geek tragedy again….. until the last pretentious paragraph http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/sport/2015/10/strategy-dependent-context-and-england-s-rugby-coach-was-fighting-previous
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Test centuries by batsmen aged over 41:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?agemin1=41;ageval1=age;class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=start;runsmin1=100;runsval1=runs;template=results;type=batting;view=innings
There are 24 of them – the last was Sir Geoffrey’s last in India in the early ’80s. Misbah still has some way to go to make the highest Test score by a batsman aged over 40 which is 236 by Eric Rowan in 1951 (he opened the batting against Bedser and Bailey then made 60* in the second innings as well).
Worthy of a bit more than half a paragraph, Mr Selvey?
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Great work, Simon.
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Misbah’s feat is more extraordinary as most of those hundreds were scored in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s only been achieved seven times since 1950.
Oldest batsmen to score a Test century:
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/282994.html
Think that record’s probably safe! Is there any batting record your south of the river lot don’t hold….
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And anything achieved by a Pakistani should count for double, given they are doing it without a home base and a country no one will tour.
No disrespect to someone like, say, Dave Warner, but such people get the best facilities and training, turn up in a bubble of security and luxury hotels, and are given the best platform to perform their deeds. Pakistan seem to exist in a barely controlled state of chaos, but still perform.
Misbah was the hero of the day (except apparently in the guardian which I don’t have the stomach for today, I’ve heard enough here already), but Younis Khan is my favourite. He failed today, he only made 56. He’s unstoppable.
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Who cares about Misbah and Younis when Jimmy is on the coattails of Shaun Pollock?
If you want a taste of vintage Selvey whine, go back and read the way he reported Number One England’s utter humiliation against SA at The Oval in 2012. 385 & 240 played 637-2 dec, and he wrote something about the South African bowlers having the only phase of favourable conditions, while “given pristine weather throughout, both sides might have batted themselves into a stalemate.”
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Good piece on cricinfo recently comparing Steyn and Anderson in Asia, given they were both about to tour. Who has the best record? The (Indian) analyst ran through a number of stats and Steyn was first every time, often daylight was second. but then they said “don’t worry, Jimmy needn’t feel so bad”…and you wait for the good news for Jimmy. Unfortunately, the good news was simply to place Steyn in global, historical context, demonstrating that he’s truly one of the greats, already, and Jimmy needn’t feel bad by not comparing well.
The sky team do do some good things, but god they bang on about Anderson. Is it because he’s attractive? Because England considers itself a specialist for swing bowling?
No need for vintage MS today thanks. My stomach remains a bit sensitive at the moment after the first test. The thing about cricket is that there are so many variables, there’s always an excuse if you want to look for one. You can twist the story any way you like.
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He must of been a real pain in the arse in his playing days. Sitting in the dressing room seeing conspiracies, and bad luck everywhere. Weather conditions, dodgy groundsman, unreliable umpires, he must have seen problems as far as the eye could see.
Or maybe he has just got more Victor Meldrew as he got older. Funny, I don’t remmebrr him being so one eyed when he used to be on TMS 25 years ago. He seemed the least reactionary of the likes of Fred Truman and and Trevor Bailey. But then England never had Prince Charming as captain then.
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Just look how many of those centuries were made by Hobbs and Armstrong….genuine legends of the game
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I don’t understand the contstant comparisons between Steyn and Anderson. Where did it begin, its not really as if they are the same type of bowler. Steyn has much more pace for instance and is a brute of a bowler. Anderson a craftsmen
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The first recorded comparison I believe:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/636951.html
And repeated here:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-india-2014/content/story/770205.html
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It started before then. At least before South Africa toured in 2012, in the Guardian. If my memory does not deceive me, Mike Selvey had written that England had the better quicks on offer, and that worked out splendidly at the Oval.
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D’Arthez
If you go back to his first Test review from the Oval 2012, as referred to earlier, you find him contributing far more often BTL. After 385 & 240 v 637-2 dec, he states that “I would favour our attack over theirs”, that “the batting was the problem” and that “the match was a nailed on draw” if the weather had been the same throughout.
He’s long since forfeited the benefit of any doubt.
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From memory, Saker started it with his “most skilful” comment. Then others, including journalists, talked of “best swing bowler”. As recently as August 2014, Cook gave an interview in which he said Steyn doesn’t swing it both ways like Jimmy, and (oh goodness how my heart sinks at this point) he actually used the phrase “no disrespect to Dale, but…”.
A lot of stuff that gets said and written about JMA in England relies on the viewer or reader having the most cursory awareness of global cricket, history and context. Which is why you see so many people here and among the more engaged BTL communities take vehemently against *any* comparison between the two. It is no coincidence that, of all quick bowlers with 400 wickets, Steyn has played by some distance the lowest proportion of Tests in England (5 out of 80; Ambrose played 20 out of 99 here). It’s easy to play on the relative ignorance of casual fans.
The neutrals – at the Guardian, certainly – mock, jeer and laugh every time the subject is raised. It’s not hard to see why.
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“no disrespect to Dale, but…”.
Some of my best friends are South African, but…
Here’s the cricinfo bit. It’s more extreme than I thought, it pretty much says Steyn is the best bowler Asia has ever seen. Anderson is not even in the picture. Even the sainted McGrath suffers by comparison.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/926079.html
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What’s the difference between a brute and a craftsman? They are both clever swing bowlers, except Steyn bowls faster. Does that make him a brute?
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Can’t swing it both ways?
Here’s Steyn bowling a batsman younger than Misbah with his outswinger:
And here he is bowling Brad Haddin with his inswinger:
(That Haddin dismissal came during one of my favourite ever sessions of play in the PE Test early last year. Steyn had just dismissed Clarke and Smith – no footage on YT alas – and had bowled Haddin with a big inswinger in the first innings. Haddin knew what was coming and still could do nothing about it).
Anderson probably is a better bowler at LHBs – Steyn averages nearly thirty against them – but his overall record is in a different class. For example, Steyn has the highest SR – and by some distance – of any bowler in the 400 club (so that’s better than McGrath, Hadlee, Ambrose etc).
Steyn has also had to bowl most of his career with the Kookabura ball which we’re reliably informed is a piece of junk that goes soft and doesn’t swing. The batting averages of ABDV, Amla, Kallis etc don’t suggest Steyn has often played in easy bowling conditions, nor has he had the benefit of a top class spinner in his team for most of his career.
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That Vaughan wicket is funny. Vaughan is standing both feet outside off stump in the end, and yet his offstump is gone. His glance back behind him as he walks off shows his confusion.
We are witnessing the career of an all time great.
Also, not cricketing related, but he seems to be a well adjusted and mature human being.
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Cracking discussion. But I’m sorry, obsessed as I am, the shot off Steyn at 8:15 in this clip is proper filth.
Carry on discussing!
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Dmitri
You’ve reminded me of just how extraordinary he was. What the hell was England thinking?
Interesting points: whoever that is commentating with Vaughan at the start just doesn’t get it, he keeps going on about how KP must “remain responsible” and “not get carried away”.
Also, at around 6.50, Pietersen scores his ton, you can see Prior and Broad going wild with delight on the balcony. How that must have hurt them.
But yes, that shot at 8.15 is an old time favorite. Not sure if I enjoy most the shot, the moan of delight from Boycott, or the look on Steyn’s face.
And the kicker at the end, when given LBW, “…and he’s just asked his partner Matt Prior if he should review it, no…”
Unfortunately no information as to whether he sweated or not.
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To be pedantic, the inswinger to Haddin is reverse swing, which is bowled with the same action as an outswinger. Anderson has the very unusual ability to swing the ball both ways with both methods of swing. That’s almost unheard of.
All beside the point, though. McGrath did very little with the ball and at a moderate pace, but was the dominant bowler of his generation. Plenty of bowlers spun the ball more than Warne (who almost never bowled a googly), but Warne was still first on the team sheet. Being able to swing the ball is a valuable skill but is not – and has never been – the be all and end all of a great bowler.
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You’re right, the ball to Haddin has the shiny side on the inside, more or less, and it swung in to that side. Reverse swing. But it was quite a scrambled ball, so I wouldn’t want to be the physicist asked to explain that ball.
You’re also right about the skill thing, it doesn’t matter what you can do, it’s how you use it. Which gets to the nub on the Anderson propaganda, this stuff about him being “the most skillful bowler in the world” reeks of just being unable to find another superlative to pin on him.
Such a shame, it would be better to just accept him as being a really good bowler, and one of England’s best, rather than trying to somehow elevate him to something he isn’t.
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I have to confess I didn’t look at the shiny side; I was basing it on the bowling action and wrist position, and the position of the seam.
The seam actually stays in pretty good shape until it pitches. Not perfect but ok. The seam is less important with reverse swing – with conventional swing the seam acts like a rudder, directing air flow one way and so forcing the ball the other. With reverse, the swing is partly generated by the lopsided weight of the ball, and by increased wind-resistance of the rough side. A good way of simulating it is to tape up one side of a tennis ball.
“Such a shame, it would be better to just accept him as being a really good bowler, and one of England’s best, rather than trying to somehow elevate him to something he isn’t.”
Absolutely. The desperate contortions of language to try to put him in the same bracket as Steyn just force people, such as myself, who are fans of his to reluctantly make the argument that he is very good – one of the best of his generation – but doesn’t qualify as great. Great bowlers, to my mind, pose a threat on all surfaces against all oppositions. The likes of Steyn, Marshall, Lillee, Hadlee may have reduced potency on some pitches – India, say – but they will always pose a threat, they will always find a way to take wickets. Anderson has too many occasions when he’s innocuous to fit in to that group (for balance, Mitchell Johnson, another bowler often tagged as great by his fans, has a similar problem).
When he’s on song there’s probably no one else who has the ball-on-a-string control of a cricket ball, but he doesn’t belong in the hall of the greats. An antechamber, sure, but not the big house.
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“With reverse, the swing is partly generated by the lopsided weight of the ball, and by increased wind-resistance of the rough side.”
I thought the increased wind resistence of the rough side generated away swing. The paradox of reverse swing is that it swings toward the direction of the smooth side.
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With classic swing, you have a smooth (shiny) side and a natural/rough side. In theory, the smooth side travels through the air quicker and the path of the ball curves away from the smooth side.
With reverse, neither side is smooth/shiny, as such. Instead you keep one side as dry and rough as possibly – which creates resistance – and the ‘shiny side’ is actually wet; you apply sweat, spit, whatever, which makes that side of the ball heavier.
The science behind both is matter of contention, however, and with both forms the body action is at least as important as the ball.
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Hmm. So if I’ve understood, unlike conventional swing, reverse swing does not depend on roughness causing resistance and dragging the ball in one direction. Roughness is irrelevant and it’s the weight of the ball through a wet/dry diifference that changes its direction. Interesting. In which case the reverse force also has to oversome the conventional force, as the rougher side will still be trying to force the ball in the other direction. In that ball to Haddin, one side is clearly smoother (and it swings in to that side).
Along with body action as you say.
I’ve often heard commentary about a team seeking to rough the ball up in order to get reverse asap. Eg. throwing the ball to the keeper on the bounce, preferably off the hard pitch. I guess the moisture can’t be managed or altered if the leather is too intact.
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The roughness is still important – it’s why people used to artificially rough up the ball with bottle tops, finger nails etc. The grooves created resistance. I suspect the weight imbalance is the most important factor, though.
Modern bowlers have turned it in to an art form/precise science, hence the refusal to allow the batsman to touch the ball these days. It used to be polite to chuck it back to a fielder if it dropped at the batsman’s feet, but now the fielding side go made if the batsman picks it up – they want to control the condition of the ball, and the batsman has sweaty gloves.
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Thanks.
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Thanks THA for the info…..
I know this will be a minority view, (and now Western bowlers have leaned how to reverse swing the ball everybody is on board with the legality of it, *snark) but I still think it is wrong. If you make one side of the ball much heavier than the other side by loading it with moisture you are fundamentally tampering with the ball. You are changing substantially it’s dynamics from how it was manufactured.
If the cricket authorities want to allow this why not have the cricket ball manufacturers create a ball that is one side heavy from the start? It seems a classic case of ball tampering to me, which is supposed to be against the rules.
Now of course this is coming from someone who is from a country where you can get a lot of seam and natural swing without having to change much about the ball. If you are a bowler in the sub continent on flat pitches where there is nothing for the bowler you are going to want to find something that will give you and advantage. But if you are going to change the ball that much you might as well let the bowlers cut the ball in half and see if that helps.
As I say, I know Iam in the minority on this.
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I can never get enough of that innings. It would be one of my desert island disc.
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watching that footage…. KP is a batsman. Cook holds a bat. Root is a semi batter. Bell does not know where his bat is. So basically we are playing without our finest batsman, Great work Giles. I hope Neil Harris appreciates it too, And Pam Nash.
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