The Cricket Thread 2016

[paul_e]

The flip side is that spotting which side is shiny and which is rough is much harder with paler balls, so players like Jimmy should be really looking forward to this.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

Aleem Dar withdrawn from India/SA series

Good umpire, but like anyone, doesn't deserve to be threatened like this. Bastards.

[PaulWinch again]

Indeed.

[Dave Cooper please]

Apparently every Test side voted against the use of floodlights to extend Test matches in bad light as it might produce "adverse results".
I despair, I really do.
If it's not dangerous, play on.

[PaulWinch again]

I don't really understand that argument, without rain you should be completing 90 overs a day. Allowing floodlights would allow uniformity of each day having 90 overs completed. It's not like England needed extra overs to win the other day, that would have been wrong, they just needed the opportunity to use all of the overs they were entitled to.

[paul_e]

I don't really understand that argument, without rain you should be completing 90 overs a day. Allowing floodlights would allow uniformity of each day having 90 overs completed. It's not like England needed extra overs to win the other day, that would have been wrong, they just needed the opportunity to use all of the overs they were entitled to.

More importantly it removes the benefits of the obvious time wasting that bowling teams do in that situation.  Misbah completely took the piss with field changes with 2-3 minutes 'wasted' between overs and an over rate for the last session of less than 12 an hour.  I'm not faulting him, any team would do it, but you have to question why there is so little interest to punish that behaviour, or at least nullify it.

[cdbearsfan]

Oh and while I'm on a whinge, India and Pakistan should be forced to employ ALL available technology, not just the ones they like.

They should be forced to play against each other too. Utterly ludicrous that, arguably, the biggest rivalry in World sport is hardly ever played.

[PaulWinch again]

Tough old pitch again, but good wicket for Moeen there.

[Villan For Life]

Not a bad session for England.  Bairstow took a couple of good catches and generally we bowled well on another difficult pitch for the bowlers. Like the last test, 28 overs in and it looks untouched. No footmarks or other areas for the spinners to exploit. It's a better pitch than Abu Dhabi but still heavily weighted in favour of the batsman.

[PaulWinch again]

Decent session for England, need to keep bowling tight and force the mistake.

[Villan For Life]

Ultimately that was a frustrating day for England. I thought we bowled with discipline and Wood in particular looked lively. It's almost a repeat of day one of the first test without the dropped catches or wickets from no balls.

Another wicket or two would have swung the game in our favour but Misbah batted really well. They have a pretty long tail so early wickets tomorrow are vital.

[peter w]

What we do have on our side is that if we can negate their spin, and there's nothing remotely fearsome about the pitch with spin so far, then even if they get 400+ the pitch in the first innings should still not offer too much to see a spinner rip us out. I could happen and I'm still not confident that we've got away from a 30-3 batting line-up but these pitches won't tell us that. If there is no terrifying (for England) spin then I can't see their bowlers limiting us in the first innings and I think we'll win.

[Villan For Life]

What we do have on our side is that if we can negate their spin, and there's nothing remotely fearsome about the pitch with spin so far, then even if they get 400+ the pitch in the first innings should still not offer too much to see a spinner rip us out. I could happen and I'm still not confident that we've got away from a 30-3 batting line-up but these pitches won't tell us that. If there is no terrifying (for England) spin then I can't see their bowlers limiting us in the first innings and I think we'll win.

Yasir Shah, who missed the first test due to injury will trouble our fragile batting line up. In 10 tests he's taken 61 wickets which is a good return. If we can deal with him then we'll be in a strong position.

[olaftab]

If there is no terrifying (for England) spin then I can't see their bowlers limiting us in the first innings and I think we'll win.

Can I have some of that stuff you have been smoking?

[olaftab]

Aleem Dar withdrawn from India/SA series

Good umpire, but like anyone, doesn't deserve to be threatened like this. Bastards.

It's a joke that so called world's biggest democracy is held to ransom by a bunch of religious zealots  and their behaviour borders on terrorism. Shiv Sena is India's eternal shame.
However I can not believe ICC have caved in so easily.