Eng Test tour of Pak, Dec 1-21

[Arthur Crabtree]

Using old time logic, Pakistan shouldn't have got as near as they did (they got the highest score of the game). And spin should have done more of the job. But England did at least do well at the end. And well done to Wood for one of his better days in Tests.

[Durhamfootman]

Terrific win. For a while there I thought Pakistan were going to shade it.

I haven't seen the Shakeel dismissal, but heard it was one of 'those'. was it definitely out, do we think, or has the foreshortening caused unneccesary doubt?

[bigfluffylemon]

Seems as though it was questionable, but it is what it is.

Brook gets POTM. I know it usually goes to a player on the winning side, but I'd have been tempted to give it to Abrar. Without him it would have been an absolute pasting.

[alfie]

Seems as though it was questionable, but it is what it is.

Brook gets POTM. I know it usually goes to a player on the winning side, but I'd have been tempted to give it to Abrar. Without him it would have been an absolute pasting.

I think I would have given the PoTM to Abrar. Shouldn't automatically go to someone on the wining team. But Brook had a good case for the award in Rawalpindi - swings and roundabouts.

As for the TV umpire decision on the catch : these things are almost impossible to really judge from TV pictures - unless very clear one way or the other. I thought it was good , live . Perhaps more to the point : field umpire thought it was out - hence soft signal. (Which isn't binding any more I understand ; but probably still factors in when the TV man is himself in doubt). Also it appeared Shakeel was pretty sure he was gone straight away - and he had a fairly close view ! Certainly Pope seemed to have control of the ball ... no way to be absolutely sure if it might have grazed the grass I suppose ; but he seemed to be gripping the ball in the same way finishing his movement as at first contact so that suggests there was no disturbance from contact with the ground. Possible bias admitted , but my instinct said it was a fair catch.

Was actually a very good take by Pope. Lot of people were unhappy he kept the gloves for this match instead of bringing Foakes back ; but I reckon he did a rather good job in conditions that were not always easy for a keeper. Some good catches and just one set of four byes across two innings.

[sussexpob]

I sometimes think we live in Parallel worlds, Alfie. He's not caught that, not in a bazillion years.

The ball hits the inside of his right hand/ring finger area. As he falls to the ground he closes the gloves completely round the ball, so we know 100% certainly that the ball is deeper than at least the first knuckle point in his gloves.

As he hits the ground, you see his left index finger bend backwards under the impact. The hands appear to open up with the ball level with his bent finger. He then raises his arm up, and the ball has moved to a point where his finger tips are below the top of the ball. It is frankly impossible for him to have his hands below the top of the ball, that hand to have clearly scrapped the floor, and the ball not to. Impossible!

I think what he has done is, the ball has dropped out of his palms, hit the ground, and he's repositioned it by pressure of his finger tips. You can CLEARLY see the seam moving as it contacts the ground too. bobbles in both directions with the impact of the bounce.

Its an absolute howler of a decision for me.

As for batter reaction/soft signal.... the commentators instantly thought the question was whether it touched his glove. It was only after a replay I believe the catch came into question

[Durhamfootman]

Don't know if anyone has commented on this, but Joe Root became only the 3rd test player to score 10,000 runs and take 50 wickets today

[Gingerfinch]

Well I didn't think Stokes was the right man for captain. This in the main comes from the lazy view that other all-rounders like Botham and Flintoff failed as skippers. So far so good though and we are even managing to get to 100 without being three down.

[bigfluffylemon]

Double post

[bigfluffylemon]

If you were being unkind, you could point out that this is hardly the strongest side Pakistan have ever fielded. Only four players have even reached double digit tests played, and only one (Babar) has more than 25, so they are very inexperienced, and lost to Australia at home earlier in the year. But history shows that Pakistan is an extremely difficult place for non-Asian sides to come and win - the England sides of Vaughan, Strauss, May etc. came away empty handed and they had pretensions to be among the best in the world. And no England side has ever won two games in a series in Pakistan (or against them in UAE). It's quite the achievement, IMO.

I wondered if this completes Jimmy's career victories against every side away, but looking into it, he's never beaten West Indies away (last England victory away there was 2003-04, he didn't feature), Zimbabwe (fair enough, England haven't played them at all since 2003 and not away since the 90s), and he didn't feature in the away victories against Bangladesh in 2005 (not yet really part of the team) or 2010 (not sure why for that one, guess he must have been injured).

Of course he completed the career home slam ages ago, as he did feature in the last England side that played Zimbabwe (in 2003), and has beaten every other team in world cricket at home in tests (South Africa might have been the last holdout until 2016 I think).

[bigfluffylemon]

Mark Wood is a player who seems to have undergone a bit of a transformation.

For the first part of his career he was pretty poor - from 2015-2018, his first 12 games, he took 30 wickets at 41.7, SR 76. I think we said at the time he had one of the worst averages, if not the worst, of any England pacer to have played 10 games (have to qualify it as pacer, as no one will match Ian Salisbury's average of 77 after 15 matches as a specialist bowler, I fervently hope...)

From the start of 2019, in 15 games he's taken 58 wickets at 25.3, SR 46.

Still sometimes flatters to deceive by taking wickets in losses or dead rubbers, but he's definitely not the liability he once was. And he can hardly be blamed for some of the batting-induced losses of 2020 and 2021.

[alfie]

I sometimes think we live in Parallel worlds, Alfie. He's not caught that, not in a bazillion years.

The ball hits the inside of his right hand/ring finger area. As he falls to the ground he closes the gloves completely round the ball, so we know 100% certainly that the ball is deeper than at least the first knuckle point in his gloves.

As he hits the ground, you see his left index finger bend backwards under the impact. The hands appear to open up with the ball level with his bent finger. He then raises his arm up, and the ball has moved to a point where his finger tips are below the top of the ball. It is frankly impossible for him to have his hands below the top of the ball, that hand to have clearly scrapped the floor, and the ball not to. Impossible!

I think what he has done is, the ball has dropped out of his palms, hit the ground, and he's repositioned it by pressure of his finger tips. You can CLEARLY see the seam moving as it contacts the ground too. bobbles in both directions with the impact of the bounce.

Its an absolute howler of a decision for me.

As for batter reaction/soft signal.... the commentators instantly thought the question was whether it touched his glove. It was only after a replay I believe the catch came into question

Haha ... I reckon we do , Sussex

You may just have much better eyes than me . Not hard - I have a few years on you ! But I would question whether it is anything like as clear as you are suggesting. Or whether you or anyone can really see as much detail as you are claiming on a TV screen. Not arguing it wasn't debateable - but Wilson obviously didn't see clear enough evidence to overturn (which may not be a big recommendation , admittedly !) ; and Aleem Dar reckoned it was out on field. As you know , low catches always look closer to , if not on , the ground than they do live.

Not quite sure what you are getting at re "batter reaction/soft signal ? Dar obviously thought it was gloved or he would have just said not out : so the only issue was grounded or not. And he reckoned the catch was taken - but , reasonably enough , wanted it checked. As it was.

May have been right , may have been wrong. But I don't think it is fair to call it a howler.

Have to chalk it up as another one we will never agree on

[alfie]

And in order to be totally fair I have now gone back again over the footage , stopping and starting the thing to try and come to a definite conclusion. Honestly , I can't.

Can certainly understand what you among others are thinking . Couple of frames there where the ball , previously masked from view , appears. Angles change a bit of course as Pope's dive continues , gloves and ball moving towards the ground ...the question is whether the ball actually slips from his grasp and is regathered on touching the ground - or is simply moved around , while still being held , as his gloves make contact with the turf.

I do not claim to be sure. But I am not sure anyone really can be. Which is why I am satisfied to leave the decision to the on field umpire - as the laws stipulate.

If I were supporting Pakistan I might have a different view I suppose

Maybe we need worm-cam ?

[sussexpob]

I don't want to post pictures and an essay about it, its suffice to say that in the few frames s he hits the ground it appears like his hands open and the seam of the ball can be seen running perpendicular to the ground. A couple of frames later the seam is pointed at a 45 degree angle with his fingers on the seam. So at that point, to me, its beyond reasonable doubt that he has re-gripped the ball after it hits the ground.

[sussexpob]

The rules really dont make much sense to me either way. The review was initiated by the umpire, who is asking for a decision to be made because he is unsure of what has happened; giving a soft signal in this instance, to me anyway, is very bizarre - its like inviting the umpire to guess which outcome he though, despite admitting he doesnt know. I'd much prefer the old fashioned way of giving the batter the benefit of the doubt, rather than the umpires guess to essentially lock the decision in cases its not 100% clear (although this should have been overturned in my view).

If I were Pakistan, I'd be very angry too that Wilson decided that Duckett's decision should be overturned (in fact, even the onfield umpire didn't want to overturn it having seen it on the screen).... because in that case, he overturned it despite it not being clear.

I guess you cant argue opposing methods to explain different decisions. The fact was, there was a noise on snicko the moment the bat hit the ground and potentially glove - its impossible to know which was, but he overruled in that sense. So Pakistan have a right to ask why two different processes were used

[bigfluffylemon]

I just watched the highlights and the catch. I'm with Sussex on this one, surprised that was given out. Looked grounded for those couple of frames on the replay.