So then … was it a bad day at the office or the shape of things to come? Only time will tell. It was clearly Pakistan’s day at Lord’s yesterday. England would be staring down the barrel had the tourists caught better. Pakistan’s bowlers were simply too good for our batsmen. That’s the bottom line.
What concerns me is that this Lord’s pitch is very good for batting. There was a little bit of movement but nothing extravagant. How are we going to cope on juicier surfaces as the series progresses?
What’s more worrying is that we made a complete horlicks of facing Yasir Shah. He didn’t spin the ball miles but his subtle variations were far too much for our team. It doesn’t exactly bode well for India this winter where Ravi Ashwin and a series of bunsens surely awaits.
The only batsmen who looked anything like comfortable were Joe Root, Alastair Cook (to a certain extent) and Chris Woakes. With Amir toying with the England captain outside off-stump, after initially bowling too straight, we really needed a big innings from Joe. He looked completely untroubled until he inexplicably hit a poor shot up in the air and was caught. Oh crap.
What followed was a bit of a procession, as James Vince, elegant and ineffective as ever, and then the hapless Garry Ballance were schooled by Yasir. The latter was always going to stuggle against the legs-spinner. You can’t play mystery spin from deep in the crease. In the end Ballance lunged forward hopefully, completely misjudged the line, missed the ball by half a foot and was plum LBW. Earlier on, Alex Hales found out what test cricket is actually about when he edged Rahat behind for a low score. This Pakistan attack is a proper test attack, not some county standard buffet brigade.
As I feared, Alastair Cook also looked uncertain against Pakistan’s seamers, particularly Amir. Although he became the leading opener in test history (in terms of runs scored) on the day, Amir might have wondered how. As soon as Pakistan cut off Cook’s routine cuts and nudges off his pads, which he put away as competently as ever, he looked quite vulnerable – much as he has done against high quality seam bowling in the past. The skipper was dropped in the slips twice – two simple chances that would be taken 99% of the time – so when Cook was eventually bowled he’d effectively made 30 odd for 3 against Pakistan’s best bowler. Not good.
However, there was one big positive on the day: once again Chris Woakes looked organised and secure. He’s turning into an excellent international player and should probably be batting higher up. Woakes currently looks like one of the best batsman in the side. He certainly looked better than both Vince and Ballance. I can see a future in which England end up fielding a seven man attack – not because we need all that bowling, but because the likes of Woakes and Stokes are selected on merit as batsmen. In the long-run, we might end up picking two wicket-keepers too!
Anyway, perhaps I’m being a little too negative about England’s prospects. We’re still in this game and with a good stand between Woakes and Broad this morning we can still get up to Pakistan’s score. What’s more, we all know that Pakistan’s performances oscillate wildly. Maybe we can bowl them out cheaply in the afternoon and then cruise to a convincing win? If we do so, however, the win will probably come courtesy of our bowlers not our batsmen.
James Morgan
I didn’t see much yesterday (only the excellent new BBC highlights service)
But following it on the internet it seemed a real strange day of cricket.
As if everybody was in a rush. I mean what’s the hurry? Even cook was going at a run a ball.
Hopefully it will settle down today. Lords tends to flatten so if Pakistan apply themselves England could get a long way behind.
2 massive frustrations are the over rate, and DRS yet again massaging the umpires ego.
The decision Moeen got was dreadful. Never out. The contact looked outside the line even on review (it said umpire’s call but not sure how) and it was just clipping the outside of leg stump too.
No real surprise for me that against a talented (although somewhat inconsistent) pace attack and a high quality wrist spinner that some of our batsmen look what they are, rather ordinary. Even more criticism in that respect can be heaped on Joe Root’s shoulders for playing a very daft shot to get out when well set. I don’t think it’s that harsh either because Root really is very good but high class players have to convert when they get well set, end of.
By the end of this series I think we may be able to properly evaluate how good some of our other players who are not Root and Cook actually are. I suspect there will be a few who might not necessarily be in full contention going ahead.
Back to this game, as I type, England have been bowled out for 67 deficit and Pakistan are up against the new ball. Broad gets Hafeez with a ridiculous late cut, nigh on fielding practice. I think that short of bowling Pakistan out for less than 200 that this game is going Pakistan’s way.
4 wickets in the 1st hour. The game shows no signs of slowing down.
And if batsmen follow Hafeez’s example, it might be over tonight.
It’s a fast scoring ground in this test. Ball is coming onto the bat nicely and the outfield is fast too. I really think good batting sides would’ve scored 400 in the first innings.
Very much odds against England winning this test now with the lead comfortably passing 250. The record scores for England chasing totals at Lord’s tell a story. The pitch is offering enough assistance and Pakistan has enough of a bowling attack to exploit this.