1st Test England v Pakistan, Lord's 14-18 July

[Aidan11]

Broad only needs another 159 to beat his best test score - also against Pakistan at Lord's.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Great day for the tourists, well done to them. Feels a good match with the initiative swinging.

[Dr Cricket]

England coped ok in UAE. Didn't thrive, but weren't hopeless. And they may well get good prep in BD before the India series. I imagine they'll struggle badly on a Dhoni type turner, but it's a big call to say they will be hopeless on flat tracks, against a lesser leggie than Yas and an (very good) offie.

Well arthur England will not get a flat deck that is guaranteed, they will get a pitch where 250-300 is a good score in first innings the days when team scored 500+ is gone now the indian players hate them, the viewers hates, indian fans hate it because non asian act like pricks when discussing Stats and that is really hurting the current and pass indian players really and is really why they making a big fuss on the pitches in india.


I be surprised if any team scores 500 runs in an innings in the 5 test matches.

England might do ok if they can get 300 runs in most innings, but hard to see that happening right now.

[Dr Cricket]

Great day for the tourists, well done to them. Feels a good match with the initiative swinging.

might be huge for the series since you expect on today showing england finding Old trafford and Oval tough, so england really need a win at the lords.

[Dr Cricket]

Wow Sky must be desperate to speak to Yasir Shah.
they normally just pick the pakistani players that can speak English the same goes with Bangladesh or Sri Lankan players.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I expect England will get wickets like SA got, and will lose on them.

[Aidan11]

We can still win this.

[Durhamfootman]

Broad only needs another 159 to beat his best test score - also against Pakistan at Lord's.

The less said about that one, the better

England appear to be making a horlicks of this one

[Dr Cricket]

I expect England will get wickets like SA got, and will lose on them.

yep the most likely thing happening, will be very surprised if the series is a run fest.

hopefully it is a competitive series and the pitches are good.

[Aidan11]

Pakistan were famous for imploding at times but they look a good unit here.

Let's just hope England haven't underestimated them.

[hopeforthebest]

Woakes has been as impressive with the bat as with the ball, a really mature innings. I thought after Bairstow went it would be quickly over but not yet. The new ball is not far away though.

[Dr Cricket]

Pakistan were famous for imploding at times but they look a good unit here.

Let's just hope England haven't underestimated them.

reckon they have really, actually thinking about it everyone kind of underestimated them really all summer or last summer people saying england should win 7-0 easily Sri lanka would be no test and pakistan would be better but still lose easily.

if anything the talk was that no one would turn up to watch the games and viewers will be down on sky.
The momentum did pick up during the past weeks because of pakistan impressive warm up games and the Amir story plus many people expecting a close series did help as well.

Might be wrong but think Arthur was predicting a 3-0 or 4-0 scoreline for England.

But would say it again Anderson the key bowler without him pakistan got a chance because they can score runs, with him playing getting 250 will tough work for pakistan which will not be enough to win games against england even with Yasir and Amir in the attack.

Really Anderson is the reason why england win so many games in england in recent times, not sure england can expect to whitewash team or thrash team consistently when he goes from the team and it should be much closer contest between england and the touring teams.

[sussexpob]

Woakes has been as impressive with the bat as with the ball, a really mature innings. I thought after Bairstow went it would be quickly over but not yet. The new ball is not far away though.

Could say early on he tried to get into Yasir's face, and a couple of times he flashed at ones that spun past his outside edge.... but at least he realised pretty quickly that Shah is not the type of spinner you want to try and smash around. After that apart from the Rahat Ali ball that kept low and beat him, he looked both technically and mentally solid.

[Durhamfootman]

How did Ball do? His figures look okay

[sussexpob]

Taking the scores aside of each batsman, the worrying thing is there isnt a lot that makes me think England are a batting unit that are developing at all.

I thought Hales got a good ball. People will always moan at openers saying they have this weakness, that weakness, but facing the new ball if you get a fast bowler who moves the ball markedly in the air like that, you can forgive an opener edging a few as it comes with the job. I dont think technically he did much wrong.

Quite how Cook made 80 is beyond me. His head is all over the place, and so many times he ended up playing to balls he could leave. He edged the simplest of catches to the slips, and then twice in a following over edged short of the slips, and then wide of the slips, and was put down on a simple catch by the keeper. He got tonnes of freebies, but every time a Pakistan player got movement into him, he was lost.

Root played some majestic shots, but gave it away trying to hit Shah out of the attack.

Vince looked rubbish. He wanted to play everything off the back foot because he seemed unable to read Shah's variation, which was fine when Shah went short and he whipped him into the leg side, but he just didnt pick the flatter, straight one at all.

Ballance looked terrible. He nearly didnt get bat on his boundary to the leg side on 0, and then just missed a pretty poor stock ball. Cumbersome footwork, looks like he was walking in treacle....a decent test bowling attack on anything but a road will fancy their chances against him any day. For me, looks one of the worst technical cricketers England have picked in a long time.

I missed most of Bairstow, but his wicket was pretty poor. Should never be playing against the spin to balls on stump lines, no matter how much room you have given yourself..... a bad series against Shah, and are we seeing that evidence of his inability against spin again? Cant really say yet after one poor dismissal