SA tour of Eng, July 19 - Sept 12

[sussexpob]

If England go with two spinners and Stokes as third pace bowler, then Wood would be one of two new ball bowlers. Who knows, that might mean he bowls a lot, or hardly at all. Recently, Indian pace bowlers in India hardly get the ball.

Traditionally, results tend to be hard to come by on pitches like Lahore/Karachi. More recently, the tests at Rawalpindi by memory have also featured pitches that are tough to get wickets on. A few recent pitches, rather than spin as they went on, just got flatter. Pakistan run out of time to chase down Australia's 500, but I think they were 450-6, so certainly could have done it (or lost, but the point is after being bowled out for 150 in the first dig, Pakistan then made a massive amount of runs on day 5).

Having two spinners in these conditions is less about attacking to get wickets, but simply to toil away getting the overs in.Its imperative if England do play two spinners, that they pick two capable of getting pressure on batters by making it hard to score.

[sussexpob]

Also, on the flip side of that, it will be interesting to see how England's aggressive approach will transfer to Pakistan pitches. While I'd say Indian pitches have become easier to score on quickly, recent series in Pakistan have been very much more a continued tradition of tracks that may favour big scores, but the key being that its more a case of accumulating these over a long time. Run rates in the 2's rather than the 3/4s....

History tells you that teams who try to force the issue in conditions like that can falter. So its necessary that England adapt if the pitches continue to favour building long innings rather than smoking the ball around