Rain did England a favour today. With no breaks in play, Pakistan would have been out of sight.
Cricket
- Thread starter summerisle
- Start date
Yeah need a vastly better bowling performance tomorrow morning. Fielding standards need a big lift as well. I dunno what it is with the first day of test series with this squad, but just dont seem able to perform. Thankfully the rain stopped them being batted out of the game.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
He did speak up for Trotty and mentioned him to both captain and manager Andy Flower at the time. Trotty also speaks generously of the support he gave him, what more could he do? He was hardly flavour of the month himself with Flower - surely he is the last person to complain about here. It's the captain and manager who are responsible not a disenchanted fellow team member, Pietersen was already not that well liked by the manager which is possibly why he wasn't taken much notice of.
KP was very much on Carberry's side too when the usual suspects went to town on him, for all his faults I do think you're choosing completely the wrong stick to beat him with on this occasion.
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Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Exactly it was a bad toss to lose and they bowled poorly in the afternoon especially. It started off badly with the wrong selection and losing the toss. The batting looks pathetic after the top six. Four down is one wicket from all out. They had to play an extra batsman even if it meant dropping Anderson and Stokes only batting.
Ten wickets is no good if you can't make any runs, Pakistan in my view are far better than the West Indies even if they're yet to move up the rankings. The rankings are largely historical in nature and often don't reflect current strength
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
And they hardly ever play home series.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
After that ridiculous hour when they could have played but decided to just stare at the empty field we had a stupid little session. Root should have said it's pace or we'll come back tomorrow but had a go with spin (and I guess it should have bought one wicket) but it basically just gifted them 20 runs.
Kind of Jos Buttler to give Shan Masood two lives today. Not good enough in the slightest
After this Covid series they have to learn their lesson about giving tests to a place famous for rain. Still love that comment from former Utd 'legend' Nemanja Vidic about the railway station being the main attraction to get away to less rainy cities.
Kind of Jos Buttler to give Shan Masood two lives today. Not good enough in the slightest
After this Covid series they have to learn their lesson about giving tests to a place famous for rain. Still love that comment from former Utd 'legend' Nemanja Vidic about the railway station being the main attraction to get away to less rainy cities.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Not a cloud in the sky here in Southport (and probably Liverpool too) looking absolutely clear despite the overcast conditions the weather apps say we're now having. They have similar forecasts for Manchester too, so a cloudy but very warm day.
Forecasting is a pretty inexact science at the best of times with so many variables involved but they could hardly have got it more wrong here - looks set for a glorious day and no wind atm either (although probably spot on with Manchester tbf lol)
Forecasting is a pretty inexact science at the best of times with so many variables involved but they could hardly have got it more wrong here - looks set for a glorious day and no wind atm either (although probably spot on with Manchester tbf lol)
Mildredblues
Player Valuation: £2.5m
Play tests at Aigburth!!
Mildredblues
Player Valuation: £2.5m
Pathetic bowling in the afternoon. Regularly bowling on the pads, just gifting away runs isn't good enough for experienced bowlers coming off a test series. They aren't lacking practice or anything. . Azam appears to regard spin bowling as his meat and drink and tea and dessert. Bess got clobbered and when he did beat Azam in flight, Buttler predictably missed the stumping.
Any score over 300 and England would struggle.
Any score over 300 and England would struggle.
BigMick
Player Valuation: £20m
There's two sides to every story and Pietersen may well have stood up for Trott, a fellow SA, and Carberry, who he knew from his Hampshire days, but there's a long list of cricketers with less flattering accounts of Kev when he was in his prime, notably James Taylor.
Taylor recounts the first and only words Pietersen said to him at their first encounter at an England net session were "What are you doing here?" before walking away, and had completely ignored him at another training session.
Even before the game had even started, he was telling the coaches and other players that Taylor shouldn’t be in the team, and then that continued during the game itself, despite the fact that Tatlor's support at the other end had allowed him to play one of the greatest knocks of his career.
Then there's his belittling of county pros and his spat with Jamie Porter, the Essex bowler, and his falling out with players at Notts etc.
I've also heard tales about how good the older Kev was with younger players, the same with Broad and Anderson, but then we all mellow as the years fly past, don't we.
Billy Dean
Player Valuation: £70m
After watching that Sky Sports documentary about KP it led me to wonder whether there might have been a degree of envy aimed at him from some of the other players. That series didn't show the likes of Swann, Broad and Prior in a particularly good light IIRC.
But like you say KP also not the easiest character to say the least.
Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Yes it wasn't meant as anything other than specifically in the two instances mentioned (regarding the bullying culture post), not as some kind of defence of a flawed character or some kind of exoneration of previous incidents. The James Taylor incident is very widely known and his very public fall outs at county level.
This is all going off at a bit of a tangent and away from the incidents specifically alluded to... but there are myriad stories of his fallouts public and otherwise
Pietersen even joined Hampshire amid pretty public acrimony at Notts, where he threatened legal action if he was not allowed to leave (his coach at Trent Bridge was Mick Newell who at the time was applying to be England coach lol) - but you can read a book about various incidents, he had a lot of baggage and had to be very carefully managed.
Then there was his rift with Peter Moores whom he found hard to deal with (he thought he tried to micromanage everything and his lack of playing experience at the top level - this is his opinion) which resulted in his resignation as England captain and England’s search for a new head coach.
No my post wasn't a defence but specific incidents were alluded to that were quite incorrect imo, because the man is far from a saint you can't then blame him for everything and anything.
Tbh this is in danger of widening into a critique of controversies from his whole career and not the ones originally specifically mentioned, which is pretty pointless really imo.
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Anderson has bowled very well again this morning, and got tmhe huge wicket. Nice ball from Broad as well.
Its funny really, they showed that graphic of the balls bowled this morning, a fantastic channel just outside of off stump. My initial thoughts were, its exemplary for if you're behind the game, but when it's swinging with cloud can we be a bit fuller and straighter. Not much, just a little. First ball from Broad he does it, and causes all manner of problems. Just got to be a tad braver.
Great spell from Anderson/Broad though and the game feels very different all of a sudden.
Great spell from Anderson/Broad though and the game feels very different all of a sudden.
Game in the balance now. 180-5 and a long tail. Should be aiming to restrict to under 300.
if Pakistan get 300 then they will be big favourites.
if Pakistan get 300 then they will be big favourites.