Chris O'Connor
Player Valuation: £35m
Two test series are farcical and lack any context at all, they could have split the summer with three tests against Pakistan and one less test against India.
I suppose once the cloud cover came over before the start of play it always seemed likely England would make quick runs and blow them away.
England then proceeded to make more than expected and in quick time too, before Pakistan's batting was even worse than expected.
England may have been suffering a hangover from their tough winter tour at Lord's and underperformed badly, morale and confidence must have understandably been at rock bottom too.
They had to respond and they did so in emphatic fashion even if this win can't paper over the obvious fault lines still there.
Next up is India who are notoriously poor travellers away from the subcontinent even if they are excellent at home on big spinning wickets. They usually don't have a seam attack good enough for English conditions with their backup bowlers particularly weak.
England have won very easily indeed on their last two tours here despite them being number one or two in the world rankings at the time. (Tbf the rankings will always favour India as they play the vast majority of their tests at home or at least on the subcontinent).
Nevertheless with our well documented current batting frailties still far from solved and confidence still brittle despite this win, this time could be a far tougher test for England.
I'm still not convinced Trevor Bayliss should be England coach at red ball cricket and Joe Root has a lot to improve on with both his own captaincy and batting. Although still scoring decently he seems to have lost the ability to convert his starts into centuries since he became captain, maybe the two are connected.
I suppose once the cloud cover came over before the start of play it always seemed likely England would make quick runs and blow them away.
England then proceeded to make more than expected and in quick time too, before Pakistan's batting was even worse than expected.
England may have been suffering a hangover from their tough winter tour at Lord's and underperformed badly, morale and confidence must have understandably been at rock bottom too.
They had to respond and they did so in emphatic fashion even if this win can't paper over the obvious fault lines still there.
Next up is India who are notoriously poor travellers away from the subcontinent even if they are excellent at home on big spinning wickets. They usually don't have a seam attack good enough for English conditions with their backup bowlers particularly weak.
England have won very easily indeed on their last two tours here despite them being number one or two in the world rankings at the time. (Tbf the rankings will always favour India as they play the vast majority of their tests at home or at least on the subcontinent).
Nevertheless with our well documented current batting frailties still far from solved and confidence still brittle despite this win, this time could be a far tougher test for England.
I'm still not convinced Trevor Bayliss should be England coach at red ball cricket and Joe Root has a lot to improve on with both his own captaincy and batting. Although still scoring decently he seems to have lost the ability to convert his starts into centuries since he became captain, maybe the two are connected.
