Saturday, December 03, 2005
What England Eight after lunch?
England crashed to defeat against Pakistan in the third test match in Lahore today, losing their last eight second innings wickets in just 70 minutes for 46 runs after lunch. Pakistan have therefore taken the series two-nil.
What happened at lunch time? 202 for 2, With Bell and Collingwood settled, having batted together all morning, it took just four balls in the afternoon session to claim the first wicket (Colly), and Kaneria also picked up Pieterson (1) and Flintoff (golden duck) in his next four balls! Bell (92), Jones (5) and Plunkett (0) all then fell to Akhtar slower balls, before Sami and Kaneria whittled out the tail (Udal - 25 and Hoggard - 0) in consecutive deliveries. Wham bam thank you mam! England lose by an innings and 100 runs!
I was pretty shell-shocked after Charlton's capitulation in the last fifteen minutes on Wednesday night, and this collapse hasn't helped my disposition much either!
The team, boosted by a couple of new arrivals, now have to pick themselves up for the one day series that starts next weekend.
Overall, the test side did not play very good cricket after the first couple of days of the series. The game in Multan could easily have been won with more application, and today's final test comfortably drawn if the batsmen had all really got stuck in properly.
Trescothick batted quite well over the series, though he was susceptable in the second innings to the new ball, falling very cheaply on two occasions. Strauss never got going in the first two tests and will be classed as a failure, as will captain Michael Vaughan (left), who missed the first test before making just one resonable score (58 in the first innings here in Lahore). Bell is the undoubted English player of the series, making good scores in each test, with a hundred in Faisalabad. Collingwood played in both defeats, but at least he made good runs here in both innings (96 and 80) after two failures at Multan. I still don't think he should bat at four. Pieterson made a hundred at Faisalabad but hardly anything else. He is still new to test cricket, and needs time to settle, though he still plays big shots too early in an innings for my liking. Flintoff bowled his heart out but was a failure here with the bat overall. Jones kept quite well in testing conditions, but didn't seem to have much luck with the bat, getting dubious LBW's on a couple of occasions (including today). Giles and Udal bowled fairly straight but didn't turn the ball much, and avaraged around 75 per wicket - not really good enough I'm afraid. Both batted solidly though. Hoggard, Harmison, and Plunkett all bowled with heart, and picked up more wickets than expected, but the pitches didn't suit for long periods and they struggled to shift certain Pakistani batsmen (Haq, Yousef, Butt, Akmal, etc).
A tour to forget then from a statistics perspective, but lessons must be learnt on the playing side otherwise we will get well beaten in India during the series that starts there in February.
What happened at lunch time? 202 for 2, With Bell and Collingwood settled, having batted together all morning, it took just four balls in the afternoon session to claim the first wicket (Colly), and Kaneria also picked up Pieterson (1) and Flintoff (golden duck) in his next four balls! Bell (92), Jones (5) and Plunkett (0) all then fell to Akhtar slower balls, before Sami and Kaneria whittled out the tail (Udal - 25 and Hoggard - 0) in consecutive deliveries. Wham bam thank you mam! England lose by an innings and 100 runs!
I was pretty shell-shocked after Charlton's capitulation in the last fifteen minutes on Wednesday night, and this collapse hasn't helped my disposition much either!
The team, boosted by a couple of new arrivals, now have to pick themselves up for the one day series that starts next weekend.
Overall, the test side did not play very good cricket after the first couple of days of the series. The game in Multan could easily have been won with more application, and today's final test comfortably drawn if the batsmen had all really got stuck in properly.
Trescothick batted quite well over the series, though he was susceptable in the second innings to the new ball, falling very cheaply on two occasions. Strauss never got going in the first two tests and will be classed as a failure, as will captain Michael Vaughan (left), who missed the first test before making just one resonable score (58 in the first innings here in Lahore). Bell is the undoubted English player of the series, making good scores in each test, with a hundred in Faisalabad. Collingwood played in both defeats, but at least he made good runs here in both innings (96 and 80) after two failures at Multan. I still don't think he should bat at four. Pieterson made a hundred at Faisalabad but hardly anything else. He is still new to test cricket, and needs time to settle, though he still plays big shots too early in an innings for my liking. Flintoff bowled his heart out but was a failure here with the bat overall. Jones kept quite well in testing conditions, but didn't seem to have much luck with the bat, getting dubious LBW's on a couple of occasions (including today). Giles and Udal bowled fairly straight but didn't turn the ball much, and avaraged around 75 per wicket - not really good enough I'm afraid. Both batted solidly though. Hoggard, Harmison, and Plunkett all bowled with heart, and picked up more wickets than expected, but the pitches didn't suit for long periods and they struggled to shift certain Pakistani batsmen (Haq, Yousef, Butt, Akmal, etc).A tour to forget then from a statistics perspective, but lessons must be learnt on the playing side otherwise we will get well beaten in India during the series that starts there in February.
