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England v Pakistan | 4th Test | The Oval | Aug 11-15, 2016 | Day 1

#GreenRoars

#GreenRoars

T20I Star
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Runs
32,520
England Squad
AN Cook*, MM Ali, JM Anderson, JM Bairstow†, JT Ball, GS Ballance, SCJ Broad, ST Finn, AD Hales, AU Rashid, JE Root, JM Vince, CR Woakes

Pakistan Squad
Misbah-ul-Haq*, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imran Khan, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Rizwan, Rahat Ali, Sami Aslam, Sarfraz Ahmed†, Shan Masood, Sohail Khan, Wahab Riaz, Yasir Shah, Younis Khan, Zulfiqar Babar
 
You are extremely unfortunate: your Chief Selector has not left you with a fifth bowling option who is fit to bat at number 7.

But this Test is Win or Bust. So you need to find another way to balance your batting and bowling requirements so that the tail isn't too long.

I reluctantly accept that Babar Azam and Hasan Ali aren't in the picture - which they should be. So using the original squad, which clearly lacked the thoughtful selection to cope with a situation like today, here is the team that I would select if I was in Pakistan's shoes today:

1. Sami Aslam
2. Azhar Ali
3. Mohammad Rizwan (wk)
4. Younis Khan (this should be Babar Azam)
5. Misbah (c)
6. Asad Shafiq
7. Iftikhar Ahmed
8. Wahab Riaz
9. Yasir Shah
10. Mohammad Amir
11. Imran Khan

I don't think that you can pick Iftikhar as a Top Six batsman. If you pick him, he has to replace Sarfraz, with Mohammad Rizwan replacing Hafeez and picking up the keeping gloves.
 
Junaids said:
You are extremely unfortunate: your Chief Selector has not left you with a fifth bowling option who is fit to bat at number 7.

But this Test is Win or Bust. So you need to find another way to balance your batting and bowling requirements so that the tail isn't too long.

I reluctantly accept that Babar Azam and Hasan Ali aren't in the picture - which they should be. So using the original squad, which clearly lacked the thoughtful selection to cope with a situation like today, here is the team that I would select if I was in Pakistan's shoes today:

1. Sami Aslam
2. Azhar Ali
3. Mohammad Rizwan (wk)
4. Younis Khan (this should be Babar Azam)
5. Misbah (c)
6. Asad Shafiq
7. Iftikhar Ahmed
8. Wahab Riaz
9. Yasir Shah
10. Mohammad Amir
11. Imran Khan

I don't think that you can pick Iftikhar as a Top Six batsman. If you pick him, he has to replace Sarfraz, with Mohammad Rizwan replacing Hafeez and picking up the keeping gloves.
Click to expand...

Bloody hell Junaids that wasn't hard was it? Finally after days of being a right grumpster you post a team from the squad which has been selected. I think it's decent although I doubt Sarfraz will be dropped.

My XI

1.Sami
2.Azhar
3.Misbah (c)
4.Younis
5.Shafiq
6.Sarfraz (wk)
7.Yasir
8.Amir
9.Wahab
10.Zulfi Babar
11.Imran

Would have picked Ifti ahead of babar but i haven't seen him bowl
 
Rizwan and Imran Khan in for Hafeez and Rahat, Also if sohail khan isnt fit then bring wahab back into the side. need to win the toss and bat 1st and pile up some big runs on 1st inns.
 
Come to think of it Shoaib Malik would not have been a terrible selection here, could have batted at no.6 or no.7 and bowled some useful off spin, would trust him to hold an end.
 
Amjid Javed said:
Rizwan and Imran Khan in for Hafeez and Rahat, Also if sohail khan isnt fit then bring wahab back into the side. need to win the toss and bat 1st and pile up some big runs on 1st inns.
Click to expand...

No chance Rizwan replaces Hafeez, if Hafeez is dropped it will be because they want to play Ifthikhar
 
shaz619 said:
Bloody hell Junaids that wasn't hard was it? Finally after days of being a right grumpster you post a team from the squad which has been selected. I think it's decent although I doubt Sarfraz will be dropped.
Click to expand...
That's funny, thanks!

Seriously though, you guys give Misbah and Inzamam a ridiculously easy ride when their selectoral incompetence is leaving you stuck with worse players than you need to have.

All this week's drama "Boo hoo, we need a fifth bowler but the only one we have is Iftikhar" is absolute nonsense.

There are no fixed squads or eligibility rules.

Pakistan had Aamer Yamin, Hasan Ali and Amad Butt (and Mohammad Nawaz) on tour in England until some genius decided to send them home two weeks ago.

Who is accountable? You are either going to select five Number 11s today or leave your fast bowling one player short AGAIN.

You guys should be making Inzamam and Misbah's lives a complete misery over this self-inflicted injury.
 
shaz619 said:
Come to think of it Shoaib Malik would not have been a terrible selection here, could have batted at no.6 or no.7 and bowled some useful off spin, would trust him to hold an end.
Click to expand...

Couldnt handle the short ball in UAE. In England he would have been a sitting duck.
 
Pakistan is going to give us a shock......................with some pathetic selection of PlayingXI
 
Hafeez out, Ifthikar in.

Asad Shafiq batting at 3, apparently.

Let's wait and see for confirmation.
 
#GreenRoars said:
Pakistan is going to give us a shock......................with some pathetic selection of PlayingXI
Click to expand...

Too right!

At Euro'96 the finalists the Czech Republic were down to 8 fit outfield players and 3 goalkeepers.

If they were run by Inzamam and Misbah they would have played all three goalkeepers against Germany in the Final.

Fortunately they had some common sense, and brought in reinforcements.

Seriously, if Pakistan is about to select Iftikhar Ahmed or bat Yasir Shah as high as 7, they deserve everything they get. Which presumably means two doses of 140 all out.
 
90MPH said:
Hafeez out, Ifthikar in.

Asad Shafiq batting at 3, apparently.

Let's wait and see for confirmation.
Click to expand...

Ha ha ha.

You are promoting to number 3 a guy who scored 0 and 0 in a Test which finished four days ago. I love it!
 
Nasser Hussain passionately defending Misbah.

He's got a valid point. It was only in the evening that England took the game away.

But the main culprit was Hafeez and of course no 5th bowler.
 
Junaids said:
Ha ha ha.

You are promoting to number 3 a guy who scored 0 and 0 in a Test which finished four days ago. I love it!
Click to expand...

Its about time Shafiq showed more fight when required and number 3 spot might suit him a lot more.
 
Looks like pitch is green, win toss bowl first wicket?

Needless to say toss is very important to us, without that it's hard to be even competitive.

Pakistan don't have any strong player in the bench, they should have opted for couple of players from A tour like Nawaz for spin alrounder, Hasan/Yamen for pace allrounder and Baber for batsmen. This would have given them much better choices. Pragmatism does not help.

Iftikhar looks like will have a debut but not very inspiring. I think other change will be Sohail, he is half bowler, either Imran or Wahab will come.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Pak should bat first, even though conditions say bowl first.

It's risky but batting last will not suit them.
 
TMS say the pitch has a tinge of green and there was a brief shower this morning.

DON'T BOWL MISBAH! The team which bats first should not lose. And Yasir Shah needs to bowl fourth.
 
Michael Vaughan thinks England might put Pakistan in - greenest Oval pitch he's seen for several years.
 
Junaids said:
TMS say the pitch has a tinge of green and there was a brief shower this morning.

DON'T BOWL MISBAH! The team which bats first should not lose. And Yasir Shah needs to bowl fourth.
Click to expand...

And we are going with Iftikhar on such pitch, woow.
 
England batting.

Probably a big chance for Amir to have a bowl while the pitch is a bit like the 2010 ones.
 
England win the toss and will bat! Our bowlers need to bowl like they did at lords or 1st inns in birmingham
 
We have a chance to blast England out for 150 or less because pitch is green.
 
Poor selection is coming back to haunt us. Wahab riaz and ifti just not test standard. such an average bowling attack.
 
England batting first again, Pak should just try to get 3 wickets first session again.
 
For 1st time in the series pakistan need to do some major damage with the new ball.
 
Haha.. England didn't make a mistake this time. Still remember that they asked Australia to bat first only to be defeated by an inning in the last Ashes. Lessons learnt1
 
Dr_Bassim said:
We have a chance to blast England out for 150 or less because pitch is green.
Click to expand...

Green doesn't mean anything if there is no moisture underneath. It was green last year as well at the oval but Australia still plundered massive runs.

There will be something for the bowlers though first session but they still have to bowl well.
 
Congrats england on winning the series 3-1


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
England is batting. At least there won't be any qualms about green pitch.
 
Any chances of winning just went away with the result of the toss. Don't bother following.
 
Great to see Azhar opening and Asad at 3. It's what is right. There will be loads of pressure but I hope they come good!
 
So Sohail is still playing[emoji35][emoji35][emoji35] he is not fit to bowl in last test where he took 5 wickets.

We are still bowler short, but that's what we got. First session is very important, if we can have 3/4 down including the two Os, then maybe we can dictate terms.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Good morning everyone

Hoping for a great test match, perhaps a good toss to loose for Misbah.

Batting order has changed Azhar Ali to open the innings, and Asad Shafique makes promotion @ 3.

I will put my money on Pakistan they have nothing to loose and should play positive Cricket.
 
England just need to get through the 1st spell of sohail and Amir and it will be easy picking after that.
 
Holding saying this is one of the greenest wickets he has seen in England in a long time.
 
1 Azhar Ali, 2 Sami Aslam, 3 Asad Shafiq, 4 Younis Khan, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 6 Iftikhar Ahmed, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 8 Yasir Shah, 9 Wahab Riaz, 10 Mohammad Amir, 11 Sohail Khan

I am convinced that Hafeez is left out, Give ifftikar a chance if he comes out good i bet there will be threads flooding around PP praising him.

Wahab in always want him to play, doesn't do much with the ball movement but the effort with that punch of consistent speed makes it look like every ball is a wicket taking ball.
 
Boys inshaAllah this is a good toss to lose though I would rather have had Rahat for wahab. Need to knock them over sharpish. Can be done if we bowl the right lengths and hold our catches.
Come on boys
 
QalandarFan said:
Holding saying this is one of the greenest wickets he has seen in England in a long time.
Click to expand...

Yes that's why I found it really strange why Cook decided to bat first, well they have won the other 2 test matches batting first. He has a good faith in his batting line up.
 
I really believe England will be all out 250 but the question is will pakistan even make 250? That was a bad decision by cook.
 
Good debate between the Sky pundits on Misbah's fourth day tactics.

The forecast is overcast for most of today, Saturday and Sunday. Sunshine expected for Friday and Monday.
 
Pakistan will win this test chasing just like in 1992, 1996 and 2010 :)
 
MarkCooper said:
Misha said he would bat too
Click to expand...

Misbah always say this, he is a good captain but one thing he lacked over the years as captain, is that courage to accept the fate and go by it. He is little defensive captain in my opinion, he puts team down with such statement over the toss.

He should tell amir and wahab to run england over here.
 
Junaids said:
Ha ha ha.

You are promoting to number 3 a guy who scored 0 and 0 in a Test which finished four days ago. I love it!
Click to expand...

he is the goat we have... we gotta save our experienced living legend MYK from facing the new ball and his career to score 10,000 runs...... to do that we have to put one under the knife, and we wholeheartedly choose mr.shafiq..
 
Hopefully wahab will get another 5 here like he did in 2010
 
lahoriyah1234 said:
Misbah always say this, he is a good captain but one thing he lacked over the years as captain, is that courage to accept the fate and go by it. He is little defensive captain in my opinion, he puts team down with such statement over the toss.

He should tell amir and wahab to run england over here.
Click to expand...
Wahab is useless on green tracks. Isn't going to do anything in this test match except end his career.
 
Pakistan must be positive here and plays smart cricket, keep ends tight and let England batsman make mistakes here. Yasir and Ifikhar should bowl flighted deliveries rather than quicker because it will bring leg and short slip in play and pitch bounce will help them. Dont know what mushy is teaching yasir here. Pakistan must play with an attitude to win.
 
With wahab being one of the seamers pakistan have built their strategy around winning the toss and batting .
Imran khan would have been useful to make use of the 1st day grass because it might seam.
 
The only way Pakistan can win this test, is by Pakistan's "Chota Wasim" actually bowls like his so called clone.
 
[MENTION=138379]#GreenRoars[/MENTION] [MENTION=23613]90MPH[/MENTION] [MENTION=16]Amjid Javed[/MENTION] @Makhor [MENTION=137997]Abdullah[/MENTION] [MENTION=57110]JibranAnsari[/MENTION] [MENTION=133865]hussain.r97[/MENTION] [MENTION=5869]yasir[/MENTION] [MENTION=46929]shaz619[/MENTION]

Ok Boys !! Here we go, it's practically a do or die for us and I wouldn't mind if we go down swinging this game...

Get in their faces, sledge them like there is no tomorrow and win like Champions !!!!!
 
Sohail Khan wasn't able to last 5 days, how will he last back-to-back Test matches?? Oh God!!!
 
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