Lessons for Pakistan from Sri Lanka's Test win over England for the upcoming home Test series

[The Bald Eagle]

Sri Lanka, a board and team going through crisis of late has defeated England in England in the 3rd Test between both the sides and fought valiantly in the earlier two Tests too. While Pakistan scripting their own ignominious fate at home turfs against relatively less competitive sides. So with England Pakistan series in the offing in Pakistan, are Pakistan prepared to defeat England too or they need to take lessons from Sri Lanka led by a Pakistan pace bowling coach ie Aqib Javed

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Lesson is simple. Find bowlers of the quality of Milan Rathnayake at least , if not Asitha and Kumara.

 

[Omer2002]

Lesson is simple. Find bowlers of the quality of Milan Rathnayake at least , if not Asitha and Kumara.

you mean batters like Rathnayake never mind his bowling. We have no talent and that is the biggest reality

 

[DeadlyVenom]

This was a good win.

Jaysuria is their coach.

I wonder what sort of lesson we can learn from this

 

[Devadwal]

Sri Lanka is win because they have passion to perform for own country where in pakistan there are grouping , Power hungry for captaincy etc.

Last time that passion was seen from Pakistan Players during sarfaraz Era .

 

[jnaveen1980]

SL players are better players off the backfoot than Pakistan batsmen. Wood on a flat wicket managed to bully Pakistani batsmen. That tactic will be employed again. Not sure how Pakistan will counter it. Having said that this is not the same England that toured last time around. They had workhorses like Anderson, Ollie Robinson. Right now they don't have anyone like that.

 

[Savak]

Jayasuriya is a no nonsense task master. I read that upon joining he banned music in training sessions and he has banned Sri Lanka players wearing earrings and other jewelry and has demanded players to focus purely on cricket.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Jayasuriya is a no nonsense task master. I read that upon joining he banned music in training sessions and he has banned Sri Lanka players wearing earrings and other jewelry and has demanded players to focus purely on cricket.

Under his watch they have already defeated India in a series and England recently

 

[sweep_shot]

Lesson: If you play well, England's Bazball is no threat.

 

[Savak]

Lesson: If you play well, England's Bazball is no threat.

Bazball can be countered with good planning. Australia and Sri Lanka employed fielders on the leg side and made bowlers bowl around the wicket and target the bodies.

India countered Bazball by employing intelligent in and out fields and restricting England's reverse sweeps.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

We have seen one thing that English batters struggle against pace too. But the BIG IF is that such pace attack must be of quality

 

[Aami]

Ask the Sri Lankans to wear Pak jersey.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

biggest lesson for me to learn here is to start supporting the Sri Lankan team now... at least you'll get something positive out of it at the end.

 

[jeeteshssaxena]

Lesson is simple. Find bowlers of the quality of Milan Rathnayake at least , if not Asitha and Kumara.

Actually Sri Lanka has a good batting lineup and the series was close, first match could have gone either ways.

Mathews, Chandimal, Pathum, Kusal, Kamindu are world class players.

 

[jeeteshssaxena]

Bazball can be countered with good planning. Australia and Sri Lanka employed fielders on the leg side and made bowlers bowl around the wicket and target the bodies.

India countered Bazball by employing intelligent in and out fields and restricting England's reverse sweeps.

Sorry but we didn’t counter anything, all we saw was a weak team that fluked one match when we were missing some players.

Bazball is a failed strategy, good teams will always expose it with proper cricket.

The funny think is that Losing has no effect on the Bazballers bcoz they are here to entertain

Basically they are losers and that too shameless ones.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Bazball can be countered with good planning. Australia and Sri Lanka employed fielders on the leg side and made bowlers bowl around the wicket and target the bodies.

India countered Bazball by employing intelligent in and out fields and restricting England's reverse sweeps.

Yes but you need good bowlers to execute these plans.

Good news for PAK is that apart from Root and Smith, none of the other batters looked particularly impressive in this series.

 

[mesmerizer85]

Maybe we need to get Bowlers like Aamer Jamal in,, hopefully he can perform well like he did against AUS in tests..

 

[gibsyhesperis]

Sorry but we didn’t counter anything, all we saw was a weak team that fluked one match when we were missing some players.

Bazball is a failed strategy, good teams will always expose it with proper cricket.

The funny think is that Losing has no effect on the Bazballers bcoz they are here to entertain

Basically they are losers and that too shameless ones.

Exactly.
Osman Khawaja was the batsman of the series for Australia in the Ashes 2023 with nearly 500 runs — barely scored much more that a strike rate in the 40s
Play sensible Test cricket and they can be easily beaten — not sure Pakistan can do that though

 

[charlie007]

SL players are better players off the backfoot than Pakistan batsmen. Wood on a flat wicket managed to bully Pakistani batsmen. That tactic will be employed again. Not sure how Pakistan will counter it. Having said that this is not the same England that toured last time around. They had workhorses like Anderson, Ollie Robinson. Right now they don't have anyone like that.

Wood is out of the Pakistan tour through injury

 

[charlie007]

Actually Sri Lanka has a good batting lineup and the series was close, first match could have gone either ways.

Mathews, Chandimal, Pathum, Kusal, Kamindu are world class players.

They are good players, world class is a stretch. None of them will make it to a second World XI

 

[jeeteshssaxena]

They are good players, world class is a stretch. None of them will make it to a second World XI

Mathews is a better test batsman than anyone not names Root in that England lineup.

So is Chandimal. Kusal averages 36 as a wkt keeper bat, that’s world class.

 

[charlie007]

Mathews is a better test batsman than anyone not names Root in that England lineup.

So is Chandimal. Kusal averages 36 as a wkt keeper bat, that’s world class.

Yeah but that doesn’t make Mathews world class, not at his age now. Who said anyone other than Root is a world class batter in their (England) team?

Chandimal, world class? Really?

Will you pick Kusal over Pant, QDK, Watling, Rizwan, Litton Das etc in Tests?

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPNcricinfo.com

stats.espncricinfo.com

 

[James]

The lesson, as a few of said over the last couple of weeks, is to prepare seaming wickets.

England will win on flat pitches in Pakistan because their top five will cream it around for fun.

Serving up a greentop meanwhile is (admittedly) risky because England’s bowlers will enjoy themselves on it, but the moving ball can also expose the lack of technique in most of England’s batters. Root no, Smith and Stokes maybe not; but Crawley, Duckett, Pope and Brook will be knocked over pretty quickly.

 

[gibsyhesperis]

The lesson, as a few of said over the last couple of weeks, is to prepare seaming wickets.

England will win on flat pitches in Pakistan because their top five will cream it around for fun.

Serving up a greentop meanwhile is (admittedly) risky because England’s bowlers will enjoy themselves on it, but the moving ball can also expose the lack of technique in most of England’s batters. Root no, Smith and Stokes maybe not; but Crawley, Duckett, Pope and Brook will be knocked over pretty quickly.

You can’t produce green top wickets in October in Pakistan.
Even when we had Wasim, Waqar, et al we didn’t have greentops.

It let’s assume greentops can be produced — England batsman may not be great against the moving ball but they will be much better than the Pakistanis and the English bowlers will exploit the conditions better — unless we intend bringing Mo Abbass back….

If you are going to go extreme on the iciest, spin might be a better approach.

Might be sacrilegious but about how about trying to produce fair, bouncy wickets which supports the quicks on Days 1&2, and then later in the game.

 

[shariqnoor]

There is no lesson. Pakistan themselves nearly beat England last time round in England. They only had to dismiss Chris Woakes. Any team can go there and beat England in England. It's not a great deal. England shell home tests regularly.

The problem for Pakistan is that their bowling is probably at par with Zimbabwe. Fans and media can hype up Shaheen, Rauf, et al all they want but the reality is that they aren't even better than Tendai Chatara.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Lol who is this guy Chatara. Anyways it's going to be Pak vs Eng in Pak. So another series defeat here would be humiliating

There is no lesson. Pakistan themselves nearly beat England last time round in England. They only had to dismiss Chris Woakes. Any team can go there and beat England in England. It's not a great deal. England shell home tests regularly.

The problem for Pakistan is that their bowling is probably at par with Zimbabwe. Fans and media can hype up Shaheen, Rauf, et al all they want but the reality is that they aren't even better than Tendai Chatara.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Shan Masson in a presser today shared thoughts about preparation for the England series:

"If you look at the outlook of our squad—15 members, and after that, the inclusion of 3 more players—we’ve tried to maintain consistency in selection. If the squad members were changing frequently, then yes, you could say our preparation was lacking, but our plan is continuing just as we wanted."

"We always try to play red-ball cricket before a Test series, but the schedules are fixed long in advance. And if you’ve observed the Champions One-Day Cup 2024, the standard was good. There was Pakistan’s emerging talent in it, and our current players were also there. One-day cricket, especially in the weather in Faisalabad, had significant mental and physical demands. So, I think in a short space of time, we’ve prepared well for the series."

"And as far as Shaheen Shah Afridi is concerned, he’s bowled almost 10 overs in each match. Babar Azam has played many innings and scored a lot of runs. Your fitness gets tested when you have to bat for 50 overs and then field for 50 overs."

"Yes, we didn’t get targeted red-ball preparation, but we got enough preparation in challenging conditions where our current Test squad members played 3-5 matches. This lessened their workload, and they can participate in the Test series against England with fresh bodies."

 

[Deewana Mastana]

They will still have the same wickets as they always do which are literally dead grass if any.


England will pile on 600-5 in 100 overs and declare to smash inns defeats in atleast 1 or 2 tests out of the 3.

 

[batandballbattle]

Sri Lanka requested the ICC to suspend all board activities following their disaster of a WC campaign. The move was to reduce political influence in their board's dealings.

Since then they have improved. PCB should take the same kind of action, though this is far fetched given how closely connected politics and the PCB are

 

[Aqib_mustafa]

They will still have the same wickets as they always do which are literally dead grass if any.


England will pile on 600-5 in 100 overs and declare to smash inns defeats in atleast 1 or 2 tests out of the 3.

Dont you think pak can atleast go for pitches which turn thats how pak used to beat england with their spinners.

 

[batandballbattle]

Dont you think pak can atleast go for pitches which turn thats how pak used to beat england with their spinners.

Don't have batsmen that can play spin nowadays. It will backfire.