budgetmeansbudget wrote:There was definitely some poor quality fielding, and some dodgy batting but the bowling was high class throughout.
In terms of watchability, absolutely right up there, and a great advert for the game, so not sure what Adi means by worst?
You should have a great chance at Lords, your only win in 2014, Pakistan hammered us there a few months ago, and Stokes is likely to be absent.
I can understand one dropped catch per batting innings. But here there were so many and so many of them were normal catches:
1. Ajinkya dropped Keaton.
2. Karthik dropped Sam
3. Shikhar dropped Dawid
4. Shikhar dropped Rashid
5. Shikhar dropped Sam.
6. Dawid drops Virat.
7. Dawid drops Virat again.
8. Cook dropped Hardik.
9. Dawid drops Vijay.
I am not sure whether that is complete list. It's not just the number of dropped catches which i find disgusting but the type of catches. How many of those catches required a full stretch dive. None iirc.
Add to that, the batting has been pathetic as well by most of the batsmen. The gap between bat and pad of Dinesh Karthik was enough for two elephants to go through. The shot that Rahul played in first innings was horrible. It highlights the lack of temperament. As if he had a huge pressure of SR or as if this was a T20i match requiring a T20 temperament. The shot that Ajinkya got out, trying to score runs over three slips. That showed he too brought his T20i game to play in test match. Okay, one has to score but such a risky shot over an area which has 3 fielders and one wicket keeper ?. A shot which had very less percentile of safety. The Indian players showed total lack of temperament. One can understand that England had two world class bowlers in Jimmy and Broad, so some edges where bound to happen no matter how good the technique was. But what i cannot understand is lack of temperament and shot selection. These batsmen have lost the art of doing well-left. Vijay and Ajinkya were two good leavers outside off stump. Now those two are looking to score runs of deliveries which they once used to leave and remove the basics of their success before in test cricket. There are many sessions which i did not get to watch and may fit into bad dismisals from batsmen of both teams. The way test format is approached by most of our batsmen is of very bad quality and hence we struggle whenever the batting conditions are tough. The same batsmen will score loads of massive runs whenever the conditions are favorable for batting in this series.
That is why i wrote this was a very bad test i have seen in terms of fielding and batting approach as elaborated in this post.
At Lords, i expect conditions will be more favorable to batsmen and England have been defeated by Asian teams before over here. Think India won here on last tour. Pak won one match at Lords? Someone else too. So in spite of this loss i have hopes that due to couple of favorable scenarios we have better probability of winning at Lords.
Test FL's - 8 , ODI and Tests Combo FL's - 1, ODI World Cup - 1, ODI FL's - 7, ODI and T20i combo FL's - 1 ,
T20 Franchisee FL's - 7, T20i Cup FL's- 1, T20 FL's- 5 , 50 Overs Domestic FL's - 1, 40 Overs Domestic FL's- 1