England v Pakistan 2020.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Feels a long time since Bess chipped in.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Though a few chances have been missed off him.

First contribution from Azhar in the series. Averaging 13 before today.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Some decent resistance here from Pakistan, but the tail has arrived at the same time as the new ball so maybe there won't be much more of it.

[Arthur Crabtree]

There goes Yas. The only way is follow on.

[alfie]

Been a struggle for England to take wickets today. I agree they must enforce the follow on - still have to get three wickets , mind ! But the bowlers all have some miles in their legs so getting Pakistan out a second time might be no picnic.
Especially if the weather forecast is accurate .

Azhar - and Rizwan - have played really well today. Fine effort after the team looked down and out yesterday.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Shaheen goes. Touted as a great catch by JB2.

Wonder if Archer actually did bowl short fast spells.

[The Professor]

Been a struggle for England to take wickets today. I agree they must enforce the follow on - still have to get three wickets , mind ! But the bowlers all have some miles in their legs so getting Pakistan out a second time might be no picnic.
Especially if the weather forecast is accurate .

Azhar - and Rizwan - have played really well today. Fine effort after the team looked down and out yesterday.

I have the draw as slight favourite for these self same reasons.

[bigfluffylemon]

Fair call on the follow-on. I missed the weather forecast, especially. Looks like a good chance Tuesday will be a washout.

[alfie]

Wonder how much reliance we can place on the weather forecast ? Sunday was supposed to be all fair was it not ?
But perhaps the forecasts are only wrong on the optimistic side ...

If there are only going to be 80 odd overs in total available England will need to be very much on the ball - and probably have some luck. Not impossible though : if they can get early wickets again the pressure on the batsmen might be telling. And it is asking a lot of Azhar to do such a fine job twice in a row.

Would be a pity if the end of the series is totally wrecked by the weather so I hope there is a decent amount of play over the two days . Then if Pakistan can survive , fair play to them.

At least Jimmy should have time for a decent chance to bag the two wickets he needs for 600...

[Durhamfootman]

Shaheen goes. Touted as a great catch by JB2.

Wonder if Archer actually did bowl short fast spells.

Good enough for everyone to looked surprised

92.7 at one point..... which is a loosening pace for Woody

lots of short stuff including a back of a length delivery that stayed so low that Rizwan ducked into it and got pinged on the helmet. The spell against old man Alam was pretty hostile

[sussexpob]

Was interesting to hear Dom Bess say that he felt the light levels were dangerous with Pakistans tailenders in. He indicated that the light meter readings he seen stated the LUX at 400, which is about the level of a normal days sunset point. As stated in the previous test, while it seems overstated in many minds about how visibility is affected in the golden hour period leading to sunset, with people being able to see the ball at very low light levels, when you get to sunset style lighting even the pink ball under lights becomes difficult to pick.

They come off at nearly double that reading in the previous test according to Bess. Its worrying because of course despite my comments from last test, the evidence clearly indicates that at some point just over that sunset style light is the mark where the ball is no longer lighter than the background. Are we seeing a redressing of the balance in the opposite way here, and umpires resistant to taking players off because of pressure to continue? Aggers spent the last hour of play moaning about the dreaded light meter coming out, but if they are playing in these conditions then the matter of safety seems justified.

Several easy chances dropped and a batsman wrapped on the head after batting a long time comfortably are clues as to maybe it was actually too dark.

Rather than react to calls to play, it seems yesterday doubly underlines the importance of umpires being trained in the science of these situations. An exact light meter marker of what is safe needs to be given to umpires. Seems in the gap of a test, the umpires have gone from too cautious to reckless, based on pressure coming to continue. Keep playing in sunset lighting though, eventually someone is going to get hurt.

[sussexpob]

At the risk of taking too much for granted that will mean 4W 1L 1D from the home summer...a decent return. With some excellent performances from quite a variety of players , both established and relatively new. How much it will mean for the future is arguably somewhat tempered by doubts as to the quality of the opposition ; but you'd have to be a bit of a curmudgeon not to be encouraged by the way the team has continued with the improvements shown in SA . Living and training in this artificial bubble set up probably hasn't been altogether easy for them either

I think its far from being a curmudgeon to suggest that the environment this series is being played in is so far detached from normalcy, that results coming out the other end are probably not representative of anything normal. The Pakistan team had 10 people in their squad named as testing positive for Covid-19 before coming to England, as well as an additional unnamed 2 players that were known to have joined their biobubble later (as per ECBs own press releases). As preparations for series go, having half your team suffer from a potentially fatal disease in a global pandemic is pretty close to the bottom of possible worst case scenarios I can think of.

I wonder what any of us would have felt like if being asked to travel to, at the point they arrived, the country with the second most covid deaths in the world. How would that affect your mentality, concentration and preparations? Which players would risk such a thing? Interestingly, the only two West Indians named in their test team with IPL deals backed out, dont need the money why risk it? Darren Bravo cited possible quarantines impacting his Caribbean T20 contract as not worth it.

No one has pulled out of Pakistan team, but you seen how much these guys get paid? Babar is the top earner for 3 formats, he gets a retainer on his contract of under 20000 Euros a year, plus he will earn a little over 1000 Euros a test in England. Naseem Shah as a cat C player earns a third of that on his retainer. A lot of this squad arent even on central contracts so are getting smaller deals. They dont have access to the IPL, and domestic cat E players in Pakistan (top domestic wages) get 500 Euro on it. You refuse to tour and put that pittance of a relative wage in jeopardy, how much you earning then? These players probably dont want to be here in the slightest but need to feed their families.

Worth noting in the counter, England pulled out a test tour in a country with 2 covid deaths citing not wanting to be under such circumstances. Joe Root in his explanation said the team like to be sociable on tour and didnt like not being able to have selfies with touring fans or leave the hotel. I guess Joe Root earns 7 figures a year, he might have felt the need to stay if he earned somewhere nearer minimum wage.

So you add all this together to zero competitive preparations, 3 tests played in probably the shortest time such a series has ever been conducted, you get innings like this weekend where Pakistan looked totally gassed and gave up. This summer is not designed to produce test cricket of the best quality, its being thrashed out so the ECB dont lose money. I wonder if England would have got India or Australia to tour earlier in this summer when cases were at peaks and the first wave was still raging? My guess..... not a single player with a career and a big wage would have got near the plane.

[sussexpob]

Lastly, I had to have a chuckle at Joe Root telling us that Adil Rashid has to play for Yorkshire in the 4 day game before he is suitable for England once again. Cant be playing test cricket without doing the graft lower down.... which is why they picked Rashid in 2018 all summer for the test squad after he de facto retired from the 4 day game along with Buttler, citing that the same issue was of zero impact or concern to his ability to play test cricket.

I guess to some cynics, it might be evidence that Ed Smith is a just a blagger out of his depth and has no uniform selection criteria; but I am sure the truth is the data analytics system he invented (well actually plagiarized and claimed as his own) is so deep and intelligent, us mere mortals are unable to understand it.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Valid points Sussex. Hopefully the gamble of playing these games isn't going to backfire, and Pakistan get to leave the country without any mishaps. Someone getting seriously ill would make the whole venture look pretty sick.

[alfie]

With all due respect , Sussex , I think you're having a shot at a straw man there...

I'm absolutely not discounting the highly unusual difficulties that faced West Indies and Pakistan - and I'm sure I've also praised both for the sacrifices they've made in contesting these matches. No doubt in different circumstances both might have fielded stronger and better prepared teams.

But that has nothing to do with my suggestion that there have been a few good signs for England along the way. You can only play against the opponent you have ; and it seems unfair to dismiss a really fine innings by a young player , for example , with faint praise because that opponent was a bit off the boil for whatever reason.

As I implied in my original post , we need to see how the team performs in more challenging situations. But let's take a bit of satisfaction from some "good" performances , eh ? Lord knows we all grumble enough when they fail !

And you're not old enough to be a curmudgeon anyway