Seeing as it seems to be so hard for some folkses:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl...1853855,00.html
Quote:
THIS may be a practice match, but it will feel like a first-class victory for the Pakistan Patron’s XI if they follow up England’s second top-order collapse in two days this morning. Sixty for six in the first innings was followed by 39 for six in the dim and dewy evening yesterday, leaving only Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell — the overnight pair, possibly fighting for one Test place — and Marcus Trescothick to prevent a repetition of the collective batting failure in the opening match of last winter’s tour to South Africa.
In the Punjab at this time of the year there is dew as well as a mixture of mist and petrol pollution in the mornings and evenings (perhaps the latter will not apply away from the city centre in Multan), so the Kookaburra ball swings and seams. Lacklustre in the field during a last-wicket partnership of 61, England then, well meaningly but complacently, changed their batting order. They would probably have subsided anyway against some testing opening overs by Najaf Shah, a fast, loose-armed left-armer, and Mohammad Irshad, a dead-ringer for Aqib Javed of recent memory.
In the circumstances, Matt Prior enhanced the prospect that he will play for England in the medium term, even if he remains a reserve on this tour. He was given the chance to open the second innings after his typically hard-hit 50 on the opening day and a wicketkeeping performance by Geraint Jones yesterday that was as fumbling up to the stumps as it was sparkling standing back. Fourth out at 38 after Andrew Strauss, nicking to slip a ball that lifted sharply, Alex Loudon, caught behind off an inside edge, and Michael Vaughan, leg-before on the back foot to his fourth ball, had gone cheaply in the first eight overs, Prior had his moments of hot-headedness, but he hit some fine front-foot strokes, not least through mid-wicket.
All the sillier, therefore, that, having lasted 12 overs, he should have flick-pulled Irshad to deep square leg, whereupon the neat catcher, Yasir Arafat, the demon of Scottish Saltires, hit the stumps for the fifth and sixth times in the match with his medium-paced nip-backers.
Straws in the wind are what one looks for in matches such as this and England will hope that a tendency to collapse is not one of them. Matthew Maynard, the batting coach, made no excuses other than to say that the pitch was playing differently from the net surfaces on which the batsmen have been practising.
Bowlers prospered throughout a second day of pale sunlight when the cricket was again played earnestly to the rather surreal accompaniment of Chinook helicopters and deep-bellied transport planes leaving Islamabad airport with supplies for the survivors of the earthquakes in the mountain valleys to the north.
James Anderson took his opportunity decisively with some sharp outswing bowling in the misty morning, when bowlers of his type must strike early if they are to strike at all in these parts, even in the relative cool of winter. Liam Plunkett confirmed his immense promise with three wickets and Shaun Udal, getting a decent chance to bowl spin because Ashley Giles had won the race to be the first to retire to bed with a stomach upset, was more effective than anyone with an older ball in the afternoon.
The strongest indication of what the tour planners have in mind, however, was the amount of bowling given to Collingwood, who has been pencilled in to play an all-round role in the Test series. There may be a degree of open-mindedness yet, but that probably does not bode well for Bell, who did not bowl his medium pace and might not have been able to afford his batting failure on the first day if he was to keep Collingwood out of the Test team. A substantial innings by Bell today is essential if he is to keep the debate open.
The danger of playing Collingwood as the fourth seamer, however, was evident at the Oval in September, when he was a far less potent force than Simon Jones, and again yesterday, when he failed to trouble Zulqarnain Haider and Tahir Khan, the final pair, in his second spell. For once Vaughan let things drift a little, but by now batting had become simple for anyone with patience plus a little talent and technique, the last two being qualities that most Pakistan first-class cricketers possess wherever they appear in the batting order.
Shehzad Malik, for example, yesterday’s No 8, is a tall and natural ball-striker who scored 403 not out with 38 sixes in a 45-over match in Hertfordshire in July, batting for Langleybury against the Middlesex Tamils, who may not have been much good even by the lowliest village standards. He hit no sixes yesterday but still scored closer to a run a ball than anyone on either team so far. When he drove Udal to deep mid-on, inaugurating what will no doubt be Kevin Pietersen’s faultless catching record on the tour, the home team were 132 for eight, but the last-wicket obduracy left them only 45 behind the total at which England had declared overnight and their bowlers soon made the difference look negligible.
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2nd November 2005, 04:41
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