England v Pakistan A Warm Ups.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Dropping Finn would be a hell of a slap in the face for him, but these are different conditions, and at least one of he or Wood has to go anyway, even in the view of the biggest seam enthusiast. It would feel like a bad thing though. Selection will go back to normal in SA.

[Slipstream]

Dropping Finn would be a hell of a slap in the face for him, but these are different conditions, and at least one of he or Wood has to go anyway, even in the view of the biggest seam enthusiast. It would feel like a bad thing though. Selection will go back to normal in SA.

Does that mean Wood as the third bowler instead of Finn?

[backfootpunch]

Dropping Finn would be a hell of a slap in the face for him, but these are different conditions, and at least one of he or Wood has to go anyway, even in the view of the biggest seam enthusiast. It would feel like a bad thing though. Selection will go back to normal in SA.

Does that mean Wood as the third bowler instead of Finn?

i would think woods bowling will be better suited to the pitches, especially if we can get it reversing

finn relies on seam movement and bounce, he will get neither of those in the UAE

[Arthur Crabtree]

Hard to say just now. I'd guess Finn is a bit ahead of Wood though.

[meninblue]

No rocket science. 2 spinners must. Remember what Monty and Swann did on previous tour of India. Like that tour the spinner have more chances of taking 5 fers and running through the opposition lineup.

[shankycricket]

Hales being anywhere near a Test side is laughable in the extreme. If England play 7 batsmen, IMO they should go with : Cook, Moeen, Bell, Root, Taylor, Bairstow, Buttler, Rashid, Ansari, Broad, Anderson. Personally, I'd have Stokes for Bairstow. Not an inferior batsman and offers an additional bowling line up even if it may prove surplus.

[Making_Splinters]

Hales being anywhere near a Test side is laughable in the extreme.

Why? He's been one of the top domestic openers for the last two seasons.

[Arthur Crabtree]

First tour match on Monday, with a relatively civilised starting time of 7am. Plenty of speculation that Moeen will open.

[backfootpunch]

First tour match on Monday, with a relatively civilised starting time of 7am. Plenty of speculation that Moeen will open.

never know he might turn out to be the left handed sehwag

or he will continually flash outside the offstump and knick off all the time against the new ball. in the UAE thats not much of an issue but in south africa for the next tour it will be

[Arthur Crabtree]

Selection looks to be bit complicated for UAE. England selectors look about as adroit about getting a spinner into the team as their batters do playing the darned stuff. In SA, a new opener will be found and Moeen will go back to eight.

[sussexpob]

This is record of touring team bowlers who have won or drawn in UAE. Some pace bowlers have done well there, like McGrath and Steyn, all time greats, though some SL seamers have success in those conditions. Even average spinners have tended to take the wickets: Tahir, Harris, Craig, Duminy , Harris, Botha, or at least hold their own in the attack. Obviously records are limited, as few win or draw in UAE, apart from Pakistan.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=bowling

How relevant those stats are is questionable. When Australia played in 2002, Pakistan quite literally had a back up batting line up out. Anwar had just played his last test, no Inzi, no Mohammed Yousuf, No Afridi, No Moin Khan.... there was a big selection crisis going on at the time by memory, and a few players dropped for falling out with the coaches, while Faizal Iqbal was selected on seemingly the only basis that he was the nephew of Miandad. They also made a few rather, well, questionable picks in tests. Some bloke, Farhat, was famously selected as a batsman in one test despite only averaging about 20 in FC cricket.

Similarly, post 2009 the team was in utter disarray, key players retired or didnt play. ITs only in recent times that they have begun to have a stable batting line up again, and I think since the scores per wicket in UAE have been going up quite a lot.

This batting line up and team generally will be very difficult to beat this time round, and our pace bowlers will struggle a lot more to take wickets.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Stats aren't that robust anyway, as so few visitors have won there. But still, given the opposition, they were the bowlers who succeeded. So the pace/spin breakdown has some validity, unless we think the balance of success between the two will change against better players. Arguably, against weaker players, pace, shear kph, will be a factor in a way it won't against the better ones.

[KipperJohn]

What's the point of playing Moeen as an opener as a one-off?

We have an opening problem - indeed apart from Root the batting in its present state hardly looks robust. I can't abide stop gap measures just because the conditions might seem right - Hales should be given a run just like any other - wherever it is - or what is the point of taking him. He won't learn anything carrying the drinks.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think the idea is that an eleven that plays in all conditions will be dropped,and as the balance of the attack is commonly changed due to conditions and opposition, within a squad of players, the same might happen to the batting. This sort of thinking is pretty common in football (where managers must justify huge wages with virtuoso strategies).

[Making_Splinters]

If Ali is picked to open, then he should be given a full run at the top of the order. The interesting question is whether or not Ali will still be our first choice spinner at the end of the series.