England undone by the Emperor's New Delivery

It's a pretty hard bump that England have returned to earth with. After dismissing a fading India with disdain, an up-and-coming Pakistan have made them look like amateurs.


England's bowlers have played very well. Monty Panesar was brought back into the fold after they toiled with a lone spin option in the first Test and played very well on helpful pitches. Graeme Swann was effective, if a little overshadowed by the returning Panesar, while Stuart Broad and James Anderson both had exceptional spells in trying conditions for exponents of swing such as they. But no matter what the bowling unit achieved, they were persistently and consistently let down by the batting. The top six were just awful.

Ian Bell came into this series having finished third highest scorer in 2011 - behind Rahul Dravid and Kumar Sangakkara who had twelve and ten more innings respectively - and an average of over 118. He made 51 runs at 8 in the UAE. Kevin Pietersen fared slightly better making 67 at 11 and Eoin Morgan averaged 14 in making 82 runs in the series. Jonathan Trott has been the most successful of the top six batsmen out there, but he only made 161 runs at a snip under 27 each. All of them have found a variety of ways of getting out and much of that is down to a piece of confidence trickery from Saeed Ajmal before anyone turned their arm over.

The teesra, he claimed, was a new delivery he'd been working on and was ready to show it to England's batsmen. It's a brilliant ball, and the real cleverness of it lies in the fact that it doesn't exist.

Ajmal genuinely turns it both ways - not by much, but that's hardly the point. Like all spinners, he's also got one that goes on with the arm. By inventing a non-existent ball, he added an extra level of uncertainty into the minds of the batsmen. Already uncertain as to which direction it was turning, they were all waiting for this mystery ball that never arrived. They couldn't take risks against Ajmal, so were forced to against the unerringly consistent Abdur Rehman and the seamers who all weighed in with decent contributions. Ajmal was picking up wickets with stock off-breaks, players failing to read it from the hand, in flight or off the pitch, mesmerised by his insistence that he'd created something when what he had in fact invented was the Emperor's New Delivery.
 
This is a triumph for the art of deception. Test cricket is an much a test of mental fortitude as it is of technique and the clear winner in the mind games stakes is the Derren Brown of cricket, Saeed Ajmal.

Letters to my late father #1

Hi Dad.
You'd have liked this. Proper, attritional Test cricket. There's something there for the bowlers, which would be new to you, or at least a throwback. Moreover, bowlers are being rewarded, far more than you were used to before... well, y'know.

You'd probably have hated the DRS when it was first mooted. My fear too was that it would undermine the on-field umpire, but after a few teething troubles, it's pretty much won me over. I dare say that the BCCI's intransigence on this has emboldened my stance, but I'd have to consider myself pro-DRS now whatever the reasons. It's definitely had an effect on umpires and what they will and will not give out. TV evidence has shown that things they'd never give previously are indeed as out as you and I always suspected they were. No longer can you get away with plonking your front pad five feet down the track and expect to get away with it.

The art of spinning the ball is back with a vengeance as a result. So is the art of reading it, out of the hand and off the wicket. For all England are ranked number one in the world - no I'm not kidding - there's an alarming lack of ability to read spin. Ian Bell looks absolutely clueless and Kevin Pietersen is trying his usual approach of trying to hit the slow bowlers into submission. Predictably, it rarely works.

203 for 16 today. Just like three-day county games on uncovered pitches. You'd have bloody loved it. Well, right up until England sent out a nightwatchman to protect their number eight batsman. That, beyond all the batting incomptences, made me really bloody angry.
 
 
 
BACKGROUND: My dad died just over three years ago. He brought me up on cricket and we'd spend hours watching it together. Good times. When I moved away, we'd still chew the cud over the day's play and when cricket moved onto Sky, I'd call him at lunch, tea and/or close to relate what had happened. The first England Test after he died, I found myself reaching for the phone to call him. I was half way through dialling when I remembered he wouldn't be there. I still find myself doing it now. Instead, I'm going to start writing him these letters.

Five reasons England should be worried

England are soon to go into battle against Pakistan on neutral ground in the Arabian desert. With a fine 12 months behind them - well, excepting the 50-over format - England are widely fancied to win the series and maintain their number one ranking, increasing the gap while they're at it. But for all that they will start favourites, it behoves us all to take a moment to consider five reasons why Pakistan are nobodies pushover.

1. Experience of conditions
The UAE presents a new experience for all the England players. Pakistan, by contrast, are embarking on their third 'home' series played there. The pitches are laid on top of clay from Pakistan and have proved to be quite sub-continental in their make-up - slow, low turners. Swing tends to work - England have the edge there, for sure - but there is a great change in character between the old ball and the new and that is something new for the England batsmen to deal with.

2. Spin
England have the best spin bowler in the world at the moment. What Pakistan have is options. Saeed Ajmal has been superb on these desert tracks while Mohammad Hafeez, Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq are more than useful part-timers. By contrast, England look certain to be going in with Swann and the part-time option of Kevin Pietersen. If the Pakistan batsmen get after Pietersen and knock him out of the attack, England have a problem. If the England batsmen knock one of the Pakistan spinners around, there are three more waiting in the wings.

3. No fear
While spinners will play a big part with the old ball, pace and swing are key up front. Pakistan may have lost two of their finer exponents to Her Majesty's pleasure, but they keep turning up young tyros who can wang it down at speed and with control. Aizaz Cheema and Junaid Khan are the latest pair, a right-arm/left-arm combo, and both had successes against Sri Lanka where they bowled at some true greats of the game without any fear. They won't care what the England top order's career records look like. They'll just got out and knock you over - literally or metaphorically, either is fine.

4. Revenge
Statements to the press may say otherwise, but after what happened on their last tour of England there's more than an element of revenge in the air ahead of this one. Accusations flew this way and that and nobody in that party escaped suspicion. Since the verdicts came down, Ajmal and Shahid Afridi (not playing in the Tests, but back for the ODIs and T20s) emerged as anti-corruption heroes. Misbah-ul-Haq has presided over a new-look side untainted by the stench of what went before and now this is an opportunity to show everyone they can beat the best without any hint of it not being totally legitimate. That's a powerful incentive.

5. Tim Bresnan
The Yorkshireman only deals in Test victories. In ten matches for his country, England have won ten times. Indeed, the closest that the opposition has come in this time is either the 181-run or 8-wicket wins over Bangladesh. 40% of the time that Tim Bresnan plays for England, they win by an innings. He averages 45 with the bat and 24 with the ball, so it's far more than coincidence. Moreover, he provides a great deal of the balance to the team. Despite the impressive figures, they may be exaggerated by dint of having played so few games and it takes a leap of logic to suggest he's a genuine all-rounder rather than a bowler who can bat. See also Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad, but add all three of those together and you have the equivalent of a genuine all-rounder, just spread over three different individuals. Bresnan is hugely important to how England set up and he is a big loss.

The curious case of Zulqarnain Haider

The tribulations of the Pakistan side continue with yet another bizarre episode in the lead up to their ODI series decider with South Africa in the UAE (South Africa by plenty as it transpired). Wicketkeeper Zulqarnain Haider did a runner after posting a cryptic message on his Facebook page suggesting he hadn't gone along with a plot to lose game four of the series (Haider made 19 not out as Pakistan won to take the series to a decider) and was now being threatened. There are so many ways to deal with this story; sensitivity or top level investigative journalism for instance. We're going the other way. Set phasers to pun.


Pakistan's wicketkeeper is playing a game of Haider-n seek. He Saeed he was off for a paper, Anwar is he now? I Khan believe Ijaz buggered off. Is Haider a bad man? Has he Sindh or would such Shi'a speculation prove unhelpful? If anything, the opposite is true. He's the Kaneria in the mineshaft who has Riaz-ed the Alam in relation to match-fixing and is now on the run, Afridi of his life. Hanif Hafeez for his life, he can take solace. Amin, he's not the first Gul-lible young man to be approached by bookies. It's Saad Butt worse things happen and he Hasan old head on his young shoulders. Shoaib-oarded a flight to London and Nazir (now he's here? No? Never mind) he must con-Sultan co-operate with the cricketing authorities and they too must play their part and not Wasim back to Dubai from whence he came. The authorities Mushtaq this seriously. Junaid to crack down on it quickly. It's Pervez-ive.
Nawaz he's here, if Fahad my way I'd ensure he was protected from those trying to Qasim harm, Hakim to pieces with Razas and Kaleem, Sohail-p me god. What more can a Mandoo?

I'm glad he flew. It would have cost a fortune to get a Kabir.

That Swat we reckon anyway. Amir all week.

I'm done.

Played Skipper

The short Test series between Australia and the nominal home side, Pakistan, has started quite brightly. From the moment when Ricky Ponting stuck the elbow into the over-celebrating Mohammed Aamer, it was obvious this was going to be a feisty one.

And so it's proved so far. The Pakistanis bowled really well to dismiss Australia for 253, Mike Hussey - inevitably - marshalling the tail in making an unbeaten 53 after Australia were rocking on 208/7 and 222/9. As my old man drummed into me from a young age, never judge a pitch until both sides have used it. Where the Pakistan seamers impressed, so did Australia's pace battery. Shane Watson and Ben Hilfenhaus had reduced them to 83/5 when Shahid Afridi walked to the crease. The captain of the side, you'd think he'd do the job that was required: build a partnership with Salman Butt, who was well in having opened up, and sticking around long enough with the tail in order to get as close as possible to Australia's total.

Perhaps it's indicative of the lack of Test match cricket that Pakistan have had recently or perhaps it's just that Afridi will never change, whether he's the captain or down amongst the infantry. Either way, blasting Watson for 20-odd in one over and eventually falling - slogging, as if that should come as a surprise - to Watson for 31 off 15 deliveries.

What Pakistan needed was a captain's knock. This wasn't a captain's knock, but it was this captain's.