Bess looked good, but like people are saying, it's his bowling that needs to impress. If we wanted a spinner who could bat then there was no point in dropping Moeen
tbf Moeen looked like he could do neither last winter.
Good to be playing Ireland, though making it a 4 day Test does sound a bit patronising - you're not good enough to last 5 days
I think its more likely that the Irish don't want it a 5 day match as they don't want to be buggering around trying to change flights/ferries when they beat us inside 4 days...
Bess looked good, but like people are saying, it's his bowling that needs to impress. If we wanted a spinner who could bat then there was no point in dropping Moeen
He bowled well, certainly well enough to keep his place in the team. Plus he second top scored and also took a stupendous, diving, one handed catch with his left hand.
Test cricket is in trouble if it can't deliver more close contests
We have the issue of teams struggling away from home, but now we also have teams showing massive peaks and troughs in form during a series! A 1-1 result suggests a close series, but in reality we had 2 matches where one team was miles better than the other, neither being very satisfactory matches to watch as a result.
Last summer against South Africa and the Windies also showed this pattern, with England winning and losing by massive margins in the same series.
Test cricket is in trouble if it can't deliver more close contests
We have the issue of teams struggling away from home, but now we also have teams showing massive peaks and troughs in form during a series! A 1-1 result suggests a close series, but in reality we had 2 matches where one team was miles better than the other, neither being very satisfactory matches to watch as a result.
Last summer against South Africa and the Windies also showed this pattern, with England winning and losing by massive margins in the same series.
Agree completely, this is basically down to teams trying to hit their way out of trouble rather than bat all day for 180-2 and grind their way back into a game,
England are as guilty of this as anyone else.
The bottom line is that on sporting decks where 275-300 is about par then England can beat anyone, our batters specialise in getting quick 60-70s and we bat deep as well whilst our bowlers can knock over anyone when the ball is moving.
As we saw in Oz and before that in India our issue is on flat decks where you need to score 500+ just to stay in the game, we don't have the batsmen to score the big hundreds apart from Cook and he is obviously not the player he was anyway and our we don't have the high pace or quality spin to take wickets on flat decks.
Hopefully we will see some closer contests ahead in the India series because very few things beat the drama of a close Test match.
Test cricket is in trouble if it can't deliver more close contests
We have the issue of teams struggling away from home, but now we also have teams showing massive peaks and troughs in form during a series! A 1-1 result suggests a close series, but in reality we had 2 matches where one team was miles better than the other, neither being very satisfactory matches to watch as a result.
Last summer against South Africa and the Windies also showed this pattern, with England winning and losing by massive margins in the same series.
Agree completely, this is basically down to teams trying to hit their way out of trouble rather than bat all day for 180-2 and grind their way back into a game,
England are as guilty of this as anyone else.
The bottom line is that on sporting decks where 275-300 is about par then England can beat anyone, our batters specialise in getting quick 60-70s and we bat deep as well whilst our bowlers can knock over anyone when the ball is moving.
As we saw in Oz and before that in India our issue is on flat decks where you need to score 500+ just to stay in the game, we don't have the batsmen to score the big hundreds apart from Cook and he is obviously not the player he was anyway and our we don't have the high pace or quality spin to take wickets on flat decks.
Hopefully we will see some closer contests ahead in the India series because very few things beat the drama of a close Test match.
Would a day's play containing 180 runs and two wickets be interesting and exciting enough to encourage bigger crowds? I can't imagine many suffering a day's play like that would be clamouring to return.
Comments
Lead by 189 runs.
Buttler 80 no.
Broad is a batting fool. He should have tried to stick around whilst Buttler was batting, but I expected him to give his wicket away.
Azhar Ali b Anderson 11
Middle stump sent flying.
Sohail c Bess b Anderson 8
A great diving one handed catch.
Shafiq c Bairstow b Broad 5
Imam-ul-Haq lbw Bess 34
Sarfraz lbw Woakes 8
Shadab Khan c Cook b Curran 4
Ashraf c Malan b Bess 3
Salahuddin c Root b Bess 33
Hasan Ali c Cook b Broad 9
England win by an innings and 55 runs
Plus he second top scored and also took a stupendous, diving, one handed catch with his left hand.
Perfectly poised for a decider now.
It was the same against New Zealand in 2015, one of my favourite series in recent times.
Fair play to Pakistan - they came over and played hard but in a good spirit. Some useful young players, too - good luck to them.
We have the issue of teams struggling away from home, but now we also have teams showing massive peaks and troughs in form during a series! A 1-1 result suggests a close series, but in reality we had 2 matches where one team was miles better than the other, neither being very satisfactory matches to watch as a result.
Last summer against South Africa and the Windies also showed this pattern, with England winning and losing by massive margins in the same series.
England are as guilty of this as anyone else.
The bottom line is that on sporting decks where 275-300 is about par then England can beat anyone, our batters specialise in getting quick 60-70s and we bat deep as well whilst our bowlers can knock over anyone when the ball is moving.
As we saw in Oz and before that in India our issue is on flat decks where you need to score 500+ just to stay in the game, we don't have the batsmen to score the big hundreds apart from Cook and he is obviously not the player he was anyway and our we don't have the high pace or quality spin to take wickets on flat decks.
Hopefully we will see some closer contests ahead in the India series because very few things beat the drama of a close Test match.