God help me - the Test Cricket thread

[ElwoodBlues1]

I guess the bookies didnt want another draw, couple of quick phone calls to the Paki dressing room, agree on a price and make it look like it was reverse swing. More chance of Putin pulling out of Ukraine than getting an honest game of cricket on the continent...
Imran of course to busy buddying up with Vlad the invader than worrying about cricket....

[LP]

I guess the bookies didnt want another draw, couple of quick phone calls to the Paki dressing room, agree on a price and make it look like it was reverse swing. More chance of Putin pulling out of Ukraine than getting an honest game of cricket on the continent...
Imran of course to busy buddying up with Vlad the invader than worrying about cricket....

It seems we share an unbounded love for cynicism relating to continental cricket, is it justified, maybe so!

Some in the media today are pointing to the vulnerability of the Pakistanis to genuine quick bowling, but painting that perspective relies on the ignorance of the general public to the truth that Pakistan Cricket is overloaded with young tearaway quicks as a result of it having a dedicated local academy, modelled on the similar MRF Academy setup by Lillee in India, many of the young Pakistanis quicks bowl faster than Cummins or Starc. The players are exposed to them in local competitions as well as the PSL.

Really, this collapse and the one in the test before it are mystifying. Batting the opposition bowlers down to their knee stubs is Pakistan bread and butter cricket.

[ElwoodBlues1]

It seems we share an unbounded love for cynicism relating to continental cricket, is it justified, maybe so!

Some in the media today are pointing to the vulnerability of the Pakistanis to genuine quick bowling, but painting that perspective relies on the ignorance of the general public to the truth that Pakistan Cricket is overloaded with young tearaway quicks as a result of it having a dedicated local academy, modelled on the similar MRF Academy setup by Lillee in India, many of the young Pakistanis quicks bowl faster than Cummins or Starc. The players are exposed to them in local competitions as well as the PSL.

Agree...the Big Bash here has also fostered some young Paki quicks who have gone onto play in the Test team and there is no shortage of pace bowlers in the Paki version of the Big Bash either who bowl at good pace.
I'm just cynical of anything Pakistan and India serve up in the way of collapses, dodgy wickets, dodgy umpires etc.
Imran was all about straightening the game out at home as well as the politics when he came to power in Pakistan but quickly found out the country doesnt operate very well that way and has sold out like the previous regimes to graft and corruption.
His recent visit to see Vlad and refusal to acknowledge the aggression in Ukraine tells you where Imran's politics and moral compass is pointing these days....

[LP]

Imran was all about straightening the game out at home as well as the politics when he came to power in Pakistan but quickly found out the country doesnt operate very well that way and has sold out

Sold out or given up?

Until Pakistan education becomes widely available to both sexes and all income levels nothing will change, it's too easy for the same old same olds to hang onto their old ways, they offered boiled lollies to the starving. Even this tour the relocation of the remaining games to Lahore is a prime example. Imran doesn't even exhibit control his own backyard and cannot stop a grass roots uprising. We should all be worried and remind ourselves that Pakistan has nuclear capacity.

FWIW, I've seen similar issues in Indonesia. I'm a long long term advocate of Australia doing more and more with Indonesia, but I have no illusions about how hard that will be. However, in my opinion it's still a better long term option than China because of fundamental differences in social values between China and Indonesia.

[capcom]

When a team loses 5 wickets for 4 runs is it really related to the bowling?

In this day's play?  Yep, they were beaten, all ends up

[Professer E]

Excessively sporting declaration Pat,  we'd be the only country dumb enough to do this.    Again Australia makes the running only for others to cash in.

[capcom]

Excessively sporting declaration Pat,  we'd be the only country dumb enough to do this.    Again Australia makes the running only for others to cash in.

Agree 100% ... far too early

[tonyo]

They better hope the reverse starts fairly early.  278 on a still good track is more than gettable.

[LP]

Smith has probably dropped the test again, that is two in a row, they need to get him out of slips. He'll take the ones you do not expect to be taken, and drop the ones you expect nobody to miss!

I'd be slipping Green for the spinners.

[Mav]

Ali was given not out by the umpire after sweeping the ball only to see it hit his pad and loop to Steve Smith. Australia called for a DRS review believing he hit it onto the pad and "snicko" had a very small heartbeat as the ball passed the bat. The weird thing was that, to my eye, there was a deflection evident in both the down-the-wicket replay and the side-on replay. None of the commentators seemed to see it, so maybe I'm seeing things. Anyway, the decision was reversed and Ali was given out, much to his annoyance.