Poor first session for England, who’d have thought that an inexperienced bowling attack and having your bowling coach at home playing golf would have been an issue. The scheduling is ridiculous though, tough gig from playing in single figures in Bristol then 8 days later playing in 40 degrees in Multan. Oh well, plenty of time left in the day, test and series.
Boring test. You want a battle between bat and ball. This is one sided with a dead pitch. If I was there I'd stop watching and pop to the Tepal Tea lounge for a nice brew.
The bowling attack in these conditions looks weak, think you need some more raw speed through the air in these conditions in your pace attack, needs Woods and Archer.
Pre match they seemed to be suggesting it was a green seaming wicket..... Shan Masood playing well tho, class batsman on his day. Just a poor CC skipper for my money.
5 days is a long time… 2 wickets has helped the respectability a little. 2 more before close would be very welcome.
Around half our overs bowled by spinners and still dropped four overs short of the daily amount. Something still needs to be done by the ICC about slow over rates.
Remember going to Mumbai a few years ago , they got 92 overs in that day , fair enough it was mostly spin
It’s forty degrees and they had additional drinks breaks. There have been much worse examples than this one which was four short. But you are right, needs sorting. If they stopped being stubborn and allowed an extra hour rather than capping it at thirty minutes they’d get them in. When you have DRS decisions taking more than an over’s worth of time each time there is one, looking at all the angles - plus anything else sent to the third umpire by the standing umps, mandatory checks each time there’s a hit on the helmet - even without the shenanigans that go on changing gloves/bowling boots (depending on who’s wasting the time), there’s a lot more time taken out of the game than in years gone by. 15+ overs per hour isn’t likely possible on all occasions. Yes they should get 90 overs in and no it can’t be limitless time as people have to travel home etc. I get that. But allow an hour, and have an automatic penalty of runs added to the opposition total for any overs not bowled in that time. 10 runs for each over short say. Even 5. That’ll sort it.
