Cricket IX

[Paxter]

Well, this match is pretty much done and dusted. Pakistan have bowled well throughout, but they needed to keep the lead to around 250 to give the weak batting line-up a chance of victory. With the lead already at 279 and Katich looking solid, they are probably going to be chasing 350+.

BTW, I'm liking the composition of the Australian side ATM:

3 West Aussies

3 Tasmanians (!)

1 Queenslander

4 New South Welshmen

That's the kind of line-up that will shut-up Bill Lawry next summer (although he might start harping on about the fact that North was actually born in Victoria :thumbsdown:)

ETA: Katich is in fantastic form, but he really needs to address this nervous 80s/90s thing. Eight of his last 15 innings have been between 79-99, including a 98 and a 99.

[Paxter]

Lead now close to 400. Inept batting in the first innings is going to cost Pakistan any chance they had in this game.

@LJ: I'm sure you're not so concerned about not getting to Lord's now ;).

[ljkeane]

@LJ: I'm sure you're not so concerned about not getting to Lord's now ;).

Yeah it's less disappointing now.

Pakistan have let it slip today a bit with the bowling but overall they've bowled reasonably well, it's a shame their batting lineup doesn't look capable of putting in a remotely competitive performance.

[Jeor]

Back from holiday...

The second innings is looking better from Pakistan although they've just lost the second wicket. Which is a real shame for them - if they hadn't let Hilfenhaus and Bollinger get those runs at the end they would have been chasing 100 less runs and (up until that wicket) would have been chasing around 200 more runs with 9 wickets in hand. Fragile batting lineup or no, that would have still been a reasonable possibility.

[ljkeane]

Well Pakistan have had the heart ripped out of their batting lineup by Marcus North, they were never going to chase down 440 but that's pretty dispiriting. I think it's already pretty clear that Afridi just doesn't merit his place in the team either, which isn't helpful.

[williamjm]

Well Pakistan have had the heart ripped out of their batting lineup by Marcus North, they were never going to chase down 440 but that's pretty dispiriting. I think it's already pretty clear that Afridi just doesn't merit his place in the team either, which isn't helpful.

Afridi has now announced he is retiring from Tests (again) after the next one, at least he is honest enough to admit he doesn't have the temperament to bat in Test matches, although in retrospect he should have realised that before.

It does sound like a pretty poor performance from Pakistan. Having your batting order devastated by Shane Watson is bad enough, but to follow it up by being bamboozled by the spin of Marcus North is possibly even more absurd.

[Jeor]

Afridi has now announced he is retiring from Tests (again) after the next one, at least he is honest enough to admit he doesn't have the temperament to bat in Test matches, although in retrospect he should have realised that before.

There was a time when Shahid Afridi was a serviceable Test player (a few years ago, in the Pakistan home series against England springs to mind). After all, he did have a Test average nudging 40 and an incredible Test strike rate of 80. When he was following a batting order of Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf and Inzi at 3, 4 and 5, he played a number of great counterattacking innings. The problem is that those guys aren't there anymore. When the rest of the batting order is solid and reliable, Afridi was the X-factor, the guy who either a) when the chips were down, came in and bludgeoned Pakistan back into life, or b, when the game was set up by the earlier batsmen, came in and smashed the opposition to oblivion.

The problem is that b is never happening anymore with the low quality of most of the present Pakistani batsmen, and a) isn't happening because when you are captain you shouldn't really be taking those sort of low-percentage risks.

[Zoë Sumra]

Graeme Swann has been arrested for drink-driving. :wideeyed:

[Paxter]

Murali's farewell test looks to be headed for a draw. The cricket's been fairly exciting (SL have scored around 4 runs per over for most of their first innings), but Day 2 was a wash-out and the pitch looks too flat to produce a result inside four days. India haven't helped things by disappointing in the spin department. The pitch is spin-friendly with a fair bit of turn and bounce, and yet Ojha and Harbhajan have both been outbowled by Sehwag. TBH, Ojha doesn't look a test bowler. He's very accurate, which has served him well in ODIs and T20s, but he doesn't really have enough variation to trouble good players of spin in the test arena.

Looking forward to watching Murali bat ;).

[Jeor]

The pitch is spin-friendly with a fair bit of turn and bounce, and yet Ojha and Harbhajan have both been outbowled by Sehwag.

I've always rated Sehwag's bowling. His batting deservedly gets the lion's share of the attention but I think he can sometimes even be underbowled. I remember seeing a few Tests where he appeared to outbowl Harbhajan. He has a simple action and is a fairly orthodox type of spinner, but he has great loop, trajectory and flight. He's not afraid to give the ball some air but he can still get it to dip in on batsmen quite sharply.

[Paxter]

OK this is just weird :lol:. Even by Indian standards.

[The Winged Shadow]

OK this is just weird :lol:. Even by Indian standards.

:blink: What the fuck...

I hope Butt's performance doesn't drop due to the whole captaincy thing. He is doing brilliantly at the moment.

[Paxter]

Murali gets Tendulkar! 7 more wickets required for 800...

[DemonKing]

OK this is just weird :lol:. Even by Indian standards.

So in a few thousand years scientists will be able to clone the little master from the pages of a book...cool.

[Paxter]

Murali gets 5!! That was a vintage Murali performance - picking up three top-order batsmen with quality deliveries and then mopping up the tail to almost single-handedly turn this match on its head. Weather permitting, India will now need to bat 4+ sessions to save this test match. Even with an incredibly talented top 7 batsmen, that's not going to be easy.

ETA: Gambhir out for a duck! But Dravid and Tendulkar are the next men in, so there's still a long way to go for SL...

[ljkeane]

Australia 88 all out. This might not last long.

[Jeor]

Unbelievable stuff, Australia bowled out for 88.

Headingley seems to be a bogey ground for Australia - I guess the swing and seam of the ground is not really what Aussie batsmen are used to. But great bowling by the Pakistanis - one just hopes that their batting can back it up. It will be a real shame if their batting lets them down after such a brilliant bowling performance.

[Paxter]

We've been treated to some fantastic test cricket today - Sri Lanka have bowled and fielded brilliantly to get themselves into a match-winning position against India and Murali is just 2 wickets away now from the 800 mark. As for the Australia match, well that was the most dominant bowling display I have seen for quite some time. Asif, Aamer and Gul were absolutely on fire and, as we saw in the last Ashes series, this Australian team just doesn't have the mettle to avoid batting collapses when the ball is swinging. Of course, if there's any team who can squander this kind of position, it's Pakistan (I can't help but think back to this match). So, like Jeor, I'm hoping beyond hope that they don't stuff this up...

[Stubby]

The Pakistan team looks a different side to the mob that turned up under Afridi. Butt looks like a genius with his changes and instructions. Also, 7 out bowled or LBW with two caught at the wicket tells me that Pakistan pitched it up and bowled at the stumps.

Good on 'em.

[Paxter]

Off-topic: just saw the fixtures for the upcoming Australian tour of India. Only two test matches scheduled between the first and third ranked test teams :thumbsdown: . At least it's an improvement over the 7 ODIs (!) that were originally scheduled.