England v Pakistan

Asif gets his man - his bunny I would say. Love this game within the game.

Wow 331/4 , one more double century partnership (or couple of 100 runs partnerships) then England might not need to bat again in this match.

331-4 after being in a pickle at 118-4 has England well and truly in the driving seat.  Morgan's coolness and total domination of the spinners Kaneria and Malik was great to watch , but they did send down an awful lot of rubbish without any success.  Worse though was the horrific wicketkeeping by Kamran Akmal - so bad , it was almost comical. A simple catch which would have sent back Strauss for 15 , a regulation stumping of Collingwood which he barely laid a glove on and a "catch" to dismiss Morgan when he'd only 5 to be thrown out on appeal as not having carried. The latter was simply awful - the wicket was slow and he was stood far too far back. Even so , had he gone at it with hands apart and scooped it rather than with the gloves together , he would have taken it.   The Pakistani bowlers must have been deeply depressed by his performance and it spread through the fielding as well - this was Pakistan back to where they've been on many occasions , looking shambolic.
                England will bat once now and weather permitting will win this in a canter. Rather than be extremely happy , I'm a tad down , I wanted a contest and i'm seeing another Bangladeshi-type match.  
                 Disappointing - let's hope Pakistan come back strongly this morning , but I have serious doubts.


Edited by Sledger - 30 July 2010 at 7:01am

Akmal is terrible even his face is ugly like his keeping why dont they just drop him.

It had to be these two only. Kaneria was less impressive - it would have been nice to play Ajmal instead. It is not the first time that we have suffered because of the poor keeping and it wont be the last either. It is about time AKmal sorts it out - his batting alone should not guarantee his place in the test squad.

Gul was flat as expected - I just do not think Gul is test match stuff - but there isn't much bench strength either with Akhtar being ruled out of test matches. Another problem that will haunt Pakistan as the series progresses is back to back tests - no way can both Aamer and Asif be as effective as they are now throughout - I wonder if any team has ever played six tests in such short time span.

Kamran Akmal is back in his form I think.  I missed the whole innings yesterday because of the bad wheather and electricity failure 

Here we go - it is Farhat at first slip who drops a sitter now. memories of the 2006 series - both Farhat and AKmal dropped 15 or so chances - we have had 4 missed chances already.

I think people will now know why I rate Asif so highly, even ahead of Aamer who has more pace to cause more trouble.  Asif is McGrath-esque but with a lot more clever movement of the ball and all those lbw's he keeps on getting will highlight that.  You get a few that come on with the natural angle, one that goes away then bam, the one that nips back on.  I can watch Asif bowl all day long.

Umar Akmal and Umar Amin/Malik should be replaced immediatly by Yousuf and Younus.

Both UA's are very talentend, but Yousuf and Younus can surely do the job much better. Umar Akmal is made a star too early. In T20 or odi he is doing well but i dont think he is a test player yet. Afridi said it too that there are some players in the team who should leave and just concentrate on odi and T20. Umar Akmal is definetly one of them.

Pakistan seem to save follow on , 141-8. I shall try my luck one more time for couple of wickets.

Edited by MalhotraRaj84 - 30 July 2010 at 5:07pm

147/9 fantastic bowling that.Jimmy and Finn , what superb bowling  .

Even Imran Farhat is useless he drops as many catches as Akmal does so both need to go out or please someone kill them . Fawad is 100 times better than him still after few bad innings he is out of the team.

I hope they dont pass the follow-on mark becuz if they do than match is lost the only way Pakistan can win this is if England allow them to bat again and if they make atleast 300.

Edited by mystery - 31 July 2010 at 12:14am

Day 2 Trent Bridge: Fifteen wickets for 170 is just as bad as concrete highway(like SSC) or Snakepit(square turner, if I am right Kanput pitch) for me.

Edited by MalhotraRaj84 - 31 July 2010 at 10:26am