Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Buttler did what he does, and takes England's lead from healthy to almost certainly decisive. Despite England's flimsy tail, he could keep scoring at the other end. I was sceptical of his inclusion in the side, but he's played the top innings twice in a row now. True he was dropped on four, but good batsmen make you pay for a let-off.

3 wickets in the session is probably as good as England could have hoped for as well. England's catching this game has been spot on - screamer from Bess. Such a difference from Lord's.

Nothing's ever over until it's over in cricket, especially with this England side (looked like they had it in the bag in Christchurch for example, only to fail at the last hurdle), but it will be very very difficult for Pakistan to come back from here.

Interestingly, this scorecard almost exactly mirrors the first test.

No way back for Pakistan. Looks like a three day Test.

Maiden test wicket for Dominic.

Imam played for turn. But that was bowled with cross seam. Not pointed towards slip at all.

Seems like England won't have to bat again

Joe's collar will be up with that change which breaked the partnership.

Root given Bess some confidence here. Good to see.

Broad takes the match winning wicket

Pulls out note that says yeah vaughan talk nah

well done to England. Doubtless this now means that everything is ok, all is well, and that in the last many months they've just been a bit unlucky at the crucial times... carry on regardless

I didn't realise that this was only a 2 test series.

Very easy in the end. Bess getting wickets was pleasing to see. Buttler man of the match, but so many contributers with no stand outs.

Obvious problems but a great reply to what happened last week from England.

As has been noted many times, shame there is not another test.

just catching up with the south Asian engagement stuff sky run this test match and from it Warwickshire and Leicestershire academy are poor stuff how the hell can you have 70% of Asian players in your academy and then only have 3-4 players progressing from the Asian background in the last 14 yrs.
That is pretty insane stats surely if your academy is mostly Asian and you have decent coaching and youth set up then surely more Asian players should be coming through.
Clearly the problem lies with coaching and academy in those two counties, considering the Asian players are in the Academy and just can't make the next step.

good point on the lack of doing it as a career, wouldn't surprise me if quite a few people chose a proper job over a county career, I do sometimes get the impression Asians are happy to play cricket as a hobby, club cricket etc but wouldn't really want to play professionally in a county set up, of course they would want to play for England if they were that good but not sure they would want to be a glenn chapple type of cricketer.

Some good stats on bowlers and luck in this article:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/ ... y-good-ban

Good win in the end. As noted, this doesn't suddenly mean England are a side without problems, far from it. But it takes some of the immediate heat off.

I can't help but notice that yet again, this was a win led by the bowlers, in particular Broad and Anderson, in helpful conditions. Seems to be the story of England's wins at home over the last few years.

That said, I think 350 was an above par total for this pitch, and the England batsmen deserve some credit for a level of application they don't always show. Buttler's innings was the difference between a par score and a good one. If he'd been taken on 4, England might have only had a lead of 60-70, and Pakistan would have fancied giving England a tricky fourth innings chase. As it was, his blitz on the third morning really demoralised Pakistan, and an inexperienced side couldn't play with the same application that they did at Lord's.

Oh, and I get so few right these days that I'm going to claim this. Stopped clocks twice a day, and all that.

bigfluffylemon wrote:I'm predicting 1-1 here. Despite the weather and conditions at Lord's, both sides' batting is fragile and their swing and seam bowling in English conditions is strong. I expect one side (or both) to collapse in each test - the honours will go to whichever team collapses less.

So of course now, the next test match is 1 August.

In between, England get 11 ODIs and 4 T20s. Which is likely to keep the players from participating in any 4 day games during the time (apart from those who don't play ODIs, obviously). Even then, there's only 3 or 4 CC games scheduled in the two months.

bigfluffylemon wrote:So of course now, the next test match is 1 August.

In between, England get 11 ODIs and 4 T20s. Which is likely to keep the players from participating in any 4 day games during the time (apart from those who don't play ODIs, obviously). Even then, there's only 3 or 4 CC games scheduled in the two months.

Nice might use that against someone.

Wonder where england priorities lie now.

Spot on bfl.