England v. Pakistan - Tests.

[Donny]

England won by 74 runs.

Anderson and Robinson took 4 wickets each.

[K]

Atrociously flat pitch. At one point, Root batted left-handed.

Even more atrocious Pakistan batting.

Wowee...

[Donny]

The Test went into the last session of Day 5.

..... AND produced a win.

Similarly, the Perth Test.

What say you, K ?

[K]

Donny, "the pitch gave a result" is an old and extremely weak argument.

It's just a race to the bottom. Batters are weak. So the powers make pitches flatter and flatter to avoid 3-day games. So the batters get even weaker and weaker. So the powers make the pitches flatter still...


So now the only batter with good Test technique is the best batsman in the world, Kane Williamson. (Oz's best batsman, Marnus Labuschagne, maybe has an okay technique... The other Oz batters are atrocious. Mr NickIt, Khawaja, nicks every moving ball, but the pitches are so flat he's averaged 100 this year. Sheesh...)

If they made fair pitches, batters would improve their techniques. They'd have to to survive. And a bonus: bowlers would not break down all the time. Bowlers wouldn't all retire young.

-------------------------------------

And another thing: Look at the attendances.

The attendance for the first day in Perth was 10,000. They don't show up, 'cos there's no fair battle between bat and ball. It's boring and the folks who eat Slogathon junk won't turn up to be bored.

Test cricket will die if they continue with this sh**.

-------------------------------------

And another thing: how are dead pitches fair to the team that loses the toss?? Not even idiots would bowl first on dead pitches. So it's either a draw or the team batting last loses. If it's a draw, the team batting last still has its bowlers destroyed worse...

[Pies4shaw]

I don't know how old you are - but your comments about cricket pitches suggest that you have little history of watching Test cricket. If you'd watched in the 60s and 70s, you'd know that Test wickets have always been about like they are now. Test cricket had a problem that there were too few overs bowled to enable results to be achieved and the rules were changed to deal with that. Since that time, Tests have generally been more lively than - and as "testing" as - they ever were. Back in the day, Lillee, Thomson and Walker bowled teams out because they were Lillee, Thomson and Walker, not because they had livelier wickets.

You should have a careful look at the career averages of the best-performed Test batsmen. I'm not wanting to start you on another pointless diatribe about SPD Smith but, you know, there are players from all eras sprinkled throughout that list. The cricinfo list (limited to batsmen who played at least 20 innings) contains 60 names. Just 6 of those are current-day players. Two of those (Marnus and Abid Ali) are in the early stages of their careers and may not sustain their averages over time but even assuming they will, it isn't as if there's a whole lot of modern players up there with Bradman. Rather, there are 6 batsmen with Test averages of better than 60. Only one is a current player. There are 36 with averages of 50 or better but less than 60. 3 of those are current players. If you take into account that there are more teams and fewer competitive fixtures as a result, it isn't much of a surprise that there are modern day players with good averages. If you look at Root, for example - he averages 50 across all opposition but he has made hay against some specific countries (average of 63+ against India - he has made about a quarter of his runs against them - but under 40 against Australia, with fewer runs in a larger number of innings) and if you look at his performance in Australia, it is even slightly shabbier (average of 35.7) than his modest general average against Australia. Kohli averages 49.53 against all opposition - but if you break it down by country of game, he averages over 60 in India, over 50 in Australia and South Africa but just 36 or lower in New Zealand, England and the West Indies. Smith has played 75% of his Test cricket in Australia, England and India and averages 66.5, 60 and 60 in those places. Ponting also played 75% of his Tests in Australia, England and India. The reason his career average is "only" 52 is because he was less than 75% as effective at making runs in England as in Australia and less than half as effective in India (averages of 57.0, 41.8 and 26.5). The difference between his overall Test average and Smith's average is readily explained by the fact that Punter - much as we all loved him - had weaknesses in certain conditions and those were reflected in his variable averages across host countries, whereas, whatever your theories about Smith's ineptitude, such ineptitude isn't reflected at all in a statistical performance differential across the main places where he has played Test cricket.

Williamson also has very contrasting records in different countries. At home, he averages 65.3, in Australia 42.8, in England 30.5 and in India 33.5. Like Punter, he is a greatly-diminished scorer in some conditions than he is at home. Plainly, some "roads" are more challenging than others - at least for most players.

Looking at Bradman, he only played Tests in Australia and England (though he played against other teams than England, of course) and was equally effective at making runs in both countries.

For the most part, Australians have played well in Australia or England - but not equally-well in both - and many have been spin-bunnies on the sub-continent.

Bradman and Smith are amongst a very small number of statistical outliers (amongst batsmen with the highest averages) in not having greatly diminished avarages away from home conditions. Which brings us back to the question about batting "roads". If the tracks in Australia, India and England are all so flat that your "flat track bully" can average 60 or better on all of them over a lengthy career - why does your "best batsman in the world" make under half as many runs on some of them as he does on others?

[Donny]

Second Test.

England 5/180 at lunch. Ducket 63. Mystery spinner, Abrar Ahmed has all 5 wickets.

[Donny]

6/228. Abrar has all 6.

[Donny]

7/241. Abrar has 7/99.

No Pakistan bowler has ever debuted with 8 or more.

[Donny]

9 down. Mahmood took 2 in 2 balls.

[Donny]

Mahmood finished with 3 wickets. England 281.

[Donny]

Pak. 1/35. Babar 25*.

[Donny]

Shafique out to Leach.

2/51.Babar 37*.

[Donny]

2/65. Babar 41*.

[Donny]

Stumps. 2/107.

Babar 61*, Shakeel 32*.

[Donny]

Babar out for 75. Shakeel 56*.

3/146.