I think, so far as the declaration is concerned, that we have gone from the old "we want to give ourselves as little chance of losing" to "we want to give ourselves as much chance of winning" which is more in keeping with our current aggressive form of cricket. That will mean that we do lose the odd one because we have declared too early but will also result in us winning a lot more matches that we would otherwise have drawn and more winning series too. And that has to be for the good of Test cricket especially if other countries opt to follow suit.
It is pretty incredible to think that 8 of the wickets taken by us in the first innings were by spinners and on the 5th day of the same Test match they haven't taken any of the 7 to fall
Win, lose, draw or tie, can’t fault Stokes and England for going for it here with that declaration. Has made what otherwise would have been a dead game with players just going through the motions into an exciting finish. Also from I sports psychology perspective to win consistently you have to be able to bare to lose, not just keep the no lose mentality.
Think we will win from here but even if we don’t can’t fault the intent.
Anderson's attempted short ball at 80mph barely hits the batsman on the hip - but Leach's full length ball at 50mph would have sailed over the stumps according to DRS!
Indeed. For the regimental ones the non specialist's drop?
It's almost like you knew
Don't get me wrong. Pope probably has the talent to do it in the long term but someone who has only ever kept in 7 First Class games and not on a regular basis is not going to have developed the long term and ingrained technique to do so at Test level. Yes he will pull off the odd stunner because he is a supremely talented cricketer but he will get found out even more so standing up on a pitch where the ball is turning square. Pope has, nevertheless, done an admiral job given the circumstances.
Indeed. For the regimental ones the non specialist's drop?
It's almost like you knew
Don't get me wrong. Pope probably has the talent to do it in the long term but someone who has only ever kept in 7 First Class games and not on a regular basis is not going to have developed the long term and ingrained technique to do so at Test level. Yes he will pull have the odd stunner because he is a supremely talented cricketer but he will get found out even more so standing up on a pitch where the ball is turning square. Pope has, nevertheless, done an admiral job given the circumstances.
If we had decent spinners, he would have been shown up more. In different circumstances he could have been standing up for 70 overs today.
Comments
England 1.56
Pakistan 32.0
Draw 3.00
England win by 74 runs. A fantastic Test match even if the real "test" was for the bowlers.