Posted by After an hour of zesty nonsense this morning, the cricket restarted.
Shan Masood continued his marvellous record of being dismissed by Jimmy Anderson for pretty much no runs. Pakistan can be fairly confident that Jimmy will play the next Test and they can be fairly confident that he will open the bowling. If Masood opens the batting, they can therefore also be fairly confident that he will again be dismissed for pretty much no runs. They might want to change something there.
Younus Khan continues to bat like a man wearing unexpectedly lightweight shoes. If a pair of deep sea diving boots can be procured and his legs to some degree tethered to terra firma through wearing them, he will perhaps be back to his best.
Ben Stokes got injured. His quest to become the next Chris Woakes has again been derailed.
Moeen Ali took some wickets. Not sure where that leaves us.
Pretty solid win though. Essentially an innings victory briefly interrupted by a 30-over cricket-themed interlude.
Personally I see no need for Pakistan to change much, if anything, ahead of my sojourn to Edgbaston next week with several characters familiar to regular King Cricket readers.
I especially hope that Pakistan retain the services of Rahat Ali in the role of nightwatchman. A masterpiece in comedy miscasting.
Shan Masood opening the batting against Jimmy Anderson comes a distant second in that regard. Eventually, Shan Masood might just get the swing of it.
Ged, have you an idea of how conscientious the security are at Edgbaston? I’m also there next week, and wondering whether to try and smuggle bottles of anything in…
If you imagine a scale of 1-10, where Lord’s is 1 (you are allowed indeed encouraged to take in your booze allowance) and the Oval is 11 (the searching is very thorough, even cans of soft drinks are sometimes confiscated and I have even heard tell of thermos flasks being opened, sniffed and confiscated)…
…Edgbaston is probably a 6.
“Bottles” sounds like a bad idea though.
I see, might opt for the labour councillor method then.
Thanks for the useful scale.
The what method?
Three years ago! Feels like yesterday.
http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/local-news/councillor-advises-cricket-fans-how-3943341
He has quite a few amusing lines in the article…
“The charity has warned that one in five people in the West Midlands drink more in the summertime than at any other time of the year”.
Presumably the remaining 80% drink more at other times of the year? Or actually drink less in summer? Or are liars?
Actually that Brummy Councillor “advice incident” was 2009. There wasn’t an Edgbaston Ashes Test in 2013. I believe that the fundamental principles of the Councillor’s method date back a lot further than 2009.
Far be it from me to comment on such suggestions, but the use of tupperware and a tomato seems a bit “red flagish” to me.
Of late, I have been enjoying dry days during and wine-soaked evenings after the cricket at Edgbaston. The cricket there is usually worth watching in a state of consciousness.
I think aside from the opening spot Pakistan should make a change to their bowling. Rahat Ali did reasonably well at Lords but with the new ball in Tests he’s dropped to short and allowed Cook to get going with his favourite shots.
Imran Khan (not that one) bowled well against England in the UAE and I felt was harshly left out going into the series. He’d add more accuracy, he’d add a right arm bowler so as Yasir Shah can get some rough outside both stumps, and Gedd will be pleased as he’d add even more inept batsmanship.
I enjoyed Stokes pulling the door shut slightly too hard on returning to the dressing room injured.
Classic tantrum behaviour.
It looked like the whole frontage shook!
Not a man to tick off, apparently. Though his muscles don’t seem to have learned the lesson.
Are the selectors/etc now going to be tempted to shuffle Chris Woakes up the order to allow them to bring in another seamer, making him the new new Chris Woakes and the new old Ben Stokes?
“Ben Stokes got injured. ”
It’s a good thing that they didn’t enforce the follow on so that none of their bowlers got knackered…
Fate is a funny thing. I’m sure that it would have happened either way. But had the follow-on been enforced we would all be blaming poor, unnecessarily aggressive captaincy that didn’t allow bowlers to recuperate.