These are early days in the players’ careers but there is already evidence they possess the requisite talent, technique and temperament to push for promotionsThere may be a couple of imposters in this Test series who go by the names of Shadab Khan and Dominic Bess. They have broken into their respective teams purporting to be spin bowlers but, fiendishly, they appear to have designs on being proper batsmen.It is a path well-trodden, of course, with two modern examples in Steve Smith of Australia and England’s Kevin Pietersen. The former transformed from jokey leg‑spinner to the world’s No 1 batsman – albeit banned at present – while the latter began life sending down off-breaks in South Africa before realising his talents lay elsewhere....
Bowler took advantage of classic Leeds conditions with three Pakistan wickets in a display that defied talk of Test omissionAs a wily old pro Stuart Broad has long since learned to deal with the ups and downs that come with being a subject of critique. But after the captain who handed him his Test cap 10 years ago called for him during the week to be dropped he was not going to let it lie. Related: Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson put England on top against Pakistan Related: England v Pakistan: second Test, day one – live! Continue reading...
Squaring the Pakistan series would be a huge relief to the ECB but it may have to be done without Ben StokesThe Headingley Test has become a spicier match than was ever anticipated at the start of the summer. England were so dire at Lord’s, so emphatically beaten by the side ranked No 7 in the world, that the calls for upheaval will reach a deafening level if England lose again in Leeds.Suddenly jobs are at stake. Another defeat and there will be more demands for heads to roll. The usual reaction and the one that is familiar whenever a football side are losing is simple: sack the coach. In any case, in this instance, it is Trevor Bayliss’s turn....
A thumping defeat at Lord’s by Pakistan in mid-May has set alarm bells ringing and raised concerns about the methodologyNever mind The Hundred; English cricket is in dire need of any old hundred. The inability of England’s Test team to convert fifties into centuries has become one of their defining foibles. And it’s getting worse: 24% in 2016, 20% in 2017 and, so far in 2018, a pitiful 6%. An elite batting lineup – such as England in 2010‑11 – would be at around 40%. An even more perverse statistic is that since English cricket’s new dawn in the summer of 2015, the one-day international team have a much better conversion rate (27%) than the Test team (19%). Given the...
England’s crushing defeat highlighted how red-ball cricket’s marginalisation in this country is damaging the development of Test players – but Pakistan’s victory was a triumphFor the romantic rather than the English patriot, the Lord’s Test provided a wonderful outcome.England were humbled by the pace trio of Mohammad Abbas, Hasan Ali and Mohammad Amir. Abbas is a former leather worker from Sialkot, who has been playing in the most uncharted domestic competition in the world for seven or eight years before an excursion as Leicestershire’s overseas player (maybe not the most glamorous of overseas gigs); Hasan’s parents wanted him to get a proper job as a lawyer so they apparently burned his cricket whites; Amir is the cricketing prodigal son, misled...