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Sri Lanka open up a lead of 333 at the end of day 3 in the 1st Test vs Pakistan

Nawaz has been the best spinner here easily. He should be a lock for a while.
 
Another example of Babars pathetic captaincy. Keeping Nawaz out of the bowling attack for so long knowing full well the wicket is favouring finger spinners
 
Nothing against Salman as he is a hard working guy but I think Kamran Ghulam would have been a more complete option as he is a specialist batter first who can bowl serviceable offspin.

I would have gone with Fawad Alam. But Ghulam was definitely ahead in the line of Salman. Now he's not even in the squad eventhough he has played zero matches.
 
If Agha is a test all rounder then so am I Saqlain the coach has turned out to be a biggest fraud ever.
 
Nothing against Salman as he is a hard working guy but I think Kamran Ghulam would have been a more complete option as he is a specialist batter first who can bowl serviceable offspin.

Kamran Ghulam as a batsman should be in the squads of all 3 formats in my opinion. He has shots, basic technique (More importantly application) temperament and is willing to improve and put in the hard yards. His decent SLA is an advantage.

I understand if they wanted to use Agha against left handed batsmen but, that has not been the case much.
 
No close in fielders for Chamdimal on a turning track. Please PCB, sack Babar as captain and give the captaincy to someone with a brain cell and a competent reading of the game.
 
We are not a great team but the bizzare tactics and strategies are making us look even worse.
 
Another example of Babars pathetic captaincy. Keeping Nawaz out of the bowling attack for so long knowing full well the wicket is favouring finger spinners

During Pak's 1st innings, iirc, Jayasuria bowled for like 20 overs non stop.
 
Hassan and naseem has combined bowled 4 overs while Agha has been allowed to go on for 14 harmless overs just to justify his spot.
 
Nawaz has been the best spinner here easily. He should be a lock for a while.

True. He was always going to be as I mentioned in the announced squad thread as well. Finger spinners like Srl. No more accurate spinner in Pakistan currently and he is fit enough to regularly put good revs on the bowl.
 
Agha has bowled more overs then Nawaz this is really maddening stuff.
 
True, Kami missed a lot of chances on his bowling especially.

Kaneria was not a very good bowler though. His job was to be a supporting act to the seamers. To take the load of bowling long spells off them by bowling notoriously long spells himself. It was a given that batters would likely batter him for a hundred or so runs, but that was alright as long as he took 2 or 3 wickets in the process.

He was improving considerably by 2009-10 when he slowed down his pace and started bowling more intelligently, until ofcourse he got involved in match-fixing.
 
True. He was always going to be as I mentioned in the announced squad thread as well. Finger spinners like Srl. No more accurate spinner in Pakistan currently and he is fit enough to regularly put good revs on the bowl.

Yeah, I hope they don't push him in and out and just see him as an all-rounder. He should be the main spinner for pakistan for now. The search should be on for the second spinner.
 
No close in fielders for Chamdimal on a turning track. Please PCB, sack Babar as captain and give the captaincy to someone with a brain cell and a competent reading of the game.

Rizwan is the vice captain and should add to the tactics and strategies. Not sure if we have anyone who will get it right straight away, so better to allow Babar to grow in the role I guess. For a young captain backroom staff and their experience becomes extremely important. This is first stint for Saq as head coach despite other experiences while Tait is the bowling coach first time ever for a high profile test playing nation.
 
Babar the skipper needs to go I have not seen worse piece of captaincy since Mo Yo Sydney 2010
 
Rizwan is the vice captain and should add to the tactics and strategies. Not sure if we have anyone who will get it right straight away, so better to allow Babar to grow in the role I guess. For a young captain backroom staff and their experience becomes extremely important. This is first stint for Saq as head coach despite other experiences while Tait is the bowling coach first time ever for a high profile test playing nation.
Babar has shown no tactical acumen since he took over today he has been like a mindless drone going by a preset script
 
Just shows the type of pitch this is we will be lucky to get 150 on this
 
So we pick an extra seamer over a batsmen, then dont use the 3rd seamer. Stupid captaincy.
 
Pitch is spinning like a snake all of a sudden its game set and match. I know losing the toss the was a huge factor for sure but our team selection was the worst ever i have seen. I would have played faheem as a second seamer and not naseem and Hasan with two batters or even Nauman Ali in there. Pretty common sense
 
Even a middle.krder of lara ponting and Sachin will not give you a luxury of playing just 4 batsman and yet we played an extra seamer in Galle . Comical and clueless stuff.
 
My goodness Lankans have so much batting ..Dhanajaya has come out which means Dickwella is still to come..
 
Chandimal is very dangerous in these situations, he bats with the tail till the end and gets the all important runs for his side. Scored a match winning double ton against the Australians in the last series.
 
Saqi being a legendary spinner seriously believed this Agha can be played as a test match spinner ?

Babar is a better off spinner then him.
 
Nawazs lack of an arm ball makes it very easy to go off the back foot against him or play the slog sweep against him without fear
 
Pitch seems quite predictable at the moment. Yes it is turning but no demons in it. Perhaps it will crumble on day 4 and day 5 (if needed). But at the moment it looks like chasing down 280 odd here will be a case of mental rather than technical issues.
 
By this merit you could discount just about every great ball in the history of cricket.

It's Yasir. He is the one who bowled the delivery at the perfect pace in just the right area and got the wicket.

Yasir is garbage and has been washed up for years
 
Pakistani spinners have bowled very poorly with respect to this pitch. Watch Jayasuriya torture our batsmen in the fourth innings with a ruthless line length and with the fielders placed in the right spots.
 
It's already a match winning lead. Anything SL adds is bonus now.

To make matters worse, we have timid batsmen like Shafique and Azhar to come and play at 1.2 RPO because that's supposedly the right way to bat in Test cricket.
 
Pakistani spinners have bowled very poorly with respect to this pitch. Watch Jayasuriya torture our batsmen in the fourth innings with a ruthless line length and with the fielders placed in the right spots.

I think they've bowled decently.
Yesterdag overnight rain helped sri lanka in the first session. After that even naseem was able to handle them easily
 
I've never seen Pakistan pick the right XI for a match. Remember Afridi picking 4 seamers on a square turner in Kolkata in the t20 world cup in 2016. Here in SL they pick 3 seamers. I don't know what's their obsession with 3 seamers. You can have Faheem Ashraf as your 3rd seamer option but not have an out and out 3rd seamer who isn't even required now. SL playing with only 1 seamer.
 
Oh boy, just saw that Mendis ball...

WHAT A RIPPER!!

Up there in the leggy hall of fame that one.
 
I think they've bowled decently.
Yesterdag overnight rain helped sri lanka in the first session. After that even naseem was able to handle them easily

Too expensive. The pressure never developed.

I think moisture has some role to play here but even in the 1st innings they were expensive.

Watch the lankan spinners start off with a barrage of maiden overs.
 
I said SL will score 300. They are well on target to score even more. There are no demons in the pitch. A quality batting side should easily score 300.
 
I said SL will score 300. They are well on target to score even more. There are no demons in the pitch. A quality batting side should easily score 300.
It's a spinning cobra it's our poor quality spinners making this pitch look better
 
Kaneria was not a very good bowler though. His job was to be a supporting act to the seamers. To take the load of bowling long spells off them by bowling notoriously long spells himself. It was a given that batters would likely batter him for a hundred or so runs, but that was alright as long as he took 2 or 3 wickets in the process.

He was improving considerably by 2009-10 when he slowed down his pace and started bowling more intelligently, until of course he got involved in match-fixing.

Yes, his stats manifest that he was not that great however I believe he could have done much more with his skillset. Its around 28-30 when a spinner starts his peak with all the skills and experience mix, thats when Kaneria gave his career away
 
I don't know if it's just me or not, but there's an inner satisfaction seeing Hasan Ali getting humbled in the field with all the dropped catches and misfields given his arrogance off the field with all of his ridiculous statements. Easily the most disliked cricketer Pakistan has produced in the last 20 or so years. Amir a close second.
 
SL being positive and scoring runs. Only pakistan play cowardly cricket with bat in tests.
 
It's a spinning cobra it's our poor quality spinners making this pitch look better

It's consistent spin. Not a spinning cobra. A spinning cobra would be when there is uneven bounce and the ball jumps up on you from a full length.
 
Babar has shown no tactical acumen since he took over today he has been like a mindless drone going by a preset script

That has been said about all the captains from Pakistan of the last decade I believe. Its a team game and there is a professional backroom staff which has to do its homework as well. Yes Babar has made mistakes and will only learn from them. There is no tactical genius in Pakistan team and even in world cricket there were just 2-3 at max in last decade, rest of them learn with experience and need support of their team and management.
 
Nawaz deserves a 7fer here. He's been the best bowler in the side.
 
Pitch has not deteriorated as significantly as expected so far. Wickets have fallen because of a combination of good bowling from Yasir/Nawaz and reckless batting from Sri Lanka.
 
SL being positive and scoring runs. Only pakistan play cowardly cricket with bat in tests.

Defensive techniques of batsmen around world have gone down so the way around it to adjust has been the positive intent and scoring more in a day with decent RPOs rather then relying on techniques to play more balls and score in a natural test fashion especially on wickets which are not easy.

Pakistani batsmen funnily play like they have some extraordinary techniques and are just going to play overs and score runs like old fashioned test cricket. They are deluded to believe that imo and that's why consistency is not there at all. You still need a solid technique and defense to play test cricket but, with deteriorating techniques you cant let bowlers bowl in the good areas ball after ball while you keep trusting your defense as its gonna falter especially on difficult surfaces.
 
We need around 140 overs to chase around 300 runs which practically impossible to survive. Most likely we will be folded around 100-140 in 50-60 overs.
 
Has the pitch eased out? How are Sri Lanka scoring so freely?

They are looking to rotate strike and not let bowlers settle, add to that babars negative captaincy.

Also no point blocking and waiting for a good ball to get out to.
 
What I wouldn't give to have a young and fit Younis Khan to bat for us now....No better player of spin, especially in the 2nd innings....
 
Pitch has gotten harder to bat in the 2nd session. Spinning and bouncing a touch more. Also, turn is a bit quicker as well.
 
Need to get the last 3 wickets asap and then Imam and Abdullah need to set the tone by their intent to upset line and length of Srl bowlers. Otherwise they are going to be done by one ball or the other
 
Yes, his stats manifest that he was not that great however I believe he could have done much more with his skillset. Its around 28-30 when a spinner starts his peak with all the skills and experience mix, thats when Kaneria gave his career away

No doubt. Like I said, he seemed to be genuinely improving in 2009-10. And dominated the domestic charts in 09' too. I think he could have become a far superior bowler in his second run in the side having, learned from his past experiences. Pakistan were about to play in UAE where he would in all likeliness have picked up a bundle of wickets, and likely could have even ended his career as Pakistan all-time leading wicket-taker because he was only 29 back then. But instead he decided to throw it all away.
 
Defensive techniques of batsmen around world have gone down so the way around it to adjust has been the positive intent and scoring more in a day with decent RPOs rather then relying on techniques to play more balls and score in a natural test fashion especially on wickets which are not easy.

Pakistani batsmen funnily play like they have some extraordinary techniques and are just going to play overs and score runs like old fashioned test cricket. They are deluded to believe that imo and that's why consistency is not there at all. You still need a solid technique and defense to play test cricket but, with deteriorating techniques you cant let bowlers bowl in the good areas ball after ball while you keep trusting your defense as its gonna falter especially on difficult surfaces.

Our batsmen simply block half volleys and half trackers, no strike rotation. Which means even out of form bowlers can regain confidence when batsmen arent looking to score runs. The top order just blocks for 30 overs and then get out, so all that block hasnt advanced inns and team ends up in a bigger hole.

when you have cancers like imam and Azhar in team its no shock. unless they are batting on a dead pindi wicket they contribute nothing to side. playing just 4 batsmen here with a **** poor top 3 is just suicidal cricket.
 
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