Aus vs Pak: 3rd Test (Jan 2-6), Sydney

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

As Sri Lanka should to some extent early last year that perhaps the best way to give your self a chance of bowling out Australia cheaply is to try and restrict their scoring options, that brings frustration, and consequently drwas batsmen into playing poor shots to trying a score big runs and break the shakles.

Absolutely. two issues here though: home and away.

Competing with the Aussies outside of Australia strikes me as eminently do-able so long as one makes use of home advantage by making runs hard to come by... and then prepares a team to thrive in that sort of game.

The toughie is competing in Australia.. where you ain't able to control that sort of thing.. and where you basically have to pressure them into self destruction.

Sri Lanka have made the best job of competing with the Aussies away from Australia but I think the NZ side has had the best approach to competing IN Australia (even if it did go pear shaped for them this last time around).

If I were in Woolmer's shoes I'd turn every pitch into a swing bowlers dream... and i'd concentrate on getting the depth to the batting that compares favourably with the South Africans (Boje at 9).. or the NZ lot (with Vettori at 9). At home that would make bowling the team out damn hard work and ensure we always had a target to bowl at on helpful wickets.. and in Australia it would challenge the Aussies to score at suicidal rates as they would need 5-6 sessions per innings to try and get through that batting order :-D

I don't actually LIKE seeing cricket played that way.. and would much rather WATCH six specialist bats, a specialist keeper and 4 specialist bowlers... but Woolmer's not there to make the team pretty to watch.. he's there to ensure they are able to compete!

[Zainub]

I'm in complete agreement Rachael. You can't expect any touring side to do well in Australia unless they have the batting depth to score 500 plus runs in an innings when it really matters. You can apparently as India showed last time do well in Australia even when you have as few as just one first rate bowler in your team (in their case Kumble) but batting wise, you've got to have 6 men capable of scoring big hundreds, 3 others capable of chipping in and hanging around, you can't win without that. Yes, bowlers win test matches and you have to take 20 wickets to win, but runs on the board are crucial too.

India got 750 odd at the SCG last time - and Aus even after getting of to a good start in reply to that eventually found them selves in fair bit of trouble before being rescued by Katich, Dizzy and Waugh. In that case sheer weight of runs forced mistakes.

[Beny]

Take a look at Pontings Wagon Wheel.... Need I say more? Most of the runs through the leg side with a few cuts and one cover drive.


The fact that Shoaib was off the ground again while his team gets smashed simply is not good enough.
If he has a serious injury then simply don't play so that the Pakistani's can choose another bowler to share the work load or alternitivly if you are going to play then you can't spend a few hours every now and then off the feild if you are you're teams best bowler...

[Rachael]

Any news on when play will begin? Sounds like the rain has stopped.. but cricinfo is suggesting there could be more on the way :-(

[Zainub]

I don't know what happening out there, ESPN coverage hasn't kicked off as yet. I did though check out a few forecasts before the test started Rachael, they did concern me a wee bit. Let's hope it does, for Pakistan's sake rain for a while. And that cloud cover stays around - that should aid our bowling a bit.

[Zainub]

I'm sick and tried of complaining of playing half fit players. But in this case I guess we had no option considering Malik, Razzaq and Sami were already completely ruled out and replacements I'm afrain weren't good enough...if we'd left out Shoaib from this match Beny are attack would have finished - you don't expect to take 20 wickets with Rana, Khali, Asif, Kaneria...

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Beny

Take a look at Pontings Wagon Wheel.... Need I say more? Most of the runs through the leg side with a few cuts and one cover drive.

Exactly Beny, atrocious bowling and captaincy. Its a deeper problem than just blaming Asif (debutant) or the young Kaneria, the fault lies with everyone for today's (Day 2) insipid performance.

Pakistan's field placings, bowling strategy and general attitude in the field throughout this series has often been abysmal. Its not due to one of Inzi or Youhana, both are equally culpable, as are all the other players. For instance, first up today, when Pakistan needed to attack, Youhana started off with only two slips, and a big gap to gully. Why not a third slip? One of Hayden's earlier cuts went just where a third slip should be.

Conversely, there was a very close short-leg, but no leg-slip. What was the point of the former without the latter, easy to glance anything on leg-side so the short-leg never came in to play as an attacking option. In any case, according to Chappelli et al, the Australian openers and Ponting etc do not play that way, so why bother with "attacking" fields that, based on past data, are not brought into play?

Surely Woolmer with his laptop knows all this, and surely Pakistan do make strategies for each individual batsman based on their strengths and weaknesses? The Aussie top seven have been around for ages, even a child knows what their strong points and weaknesses are, it seems Woolmer, Inzi, Yoyo, Shoaib and Kaneria do not.

In addition, these silly field placings were at the start of the innings from the first over - call me naive, but I always though the field placings for the first over were decided in the dressing room, with input from Coach, Manager, Bowlers, Captain etc, so these are not decided out there on the hoof. Fair enough, I accept that Yoyo cannot improvise when he is out on the field or respond to situations, but really, between the 16 of them, they should at least get the field right for the first over!

Many times in this series, Pakistani field placings have been too formulaic, too conventional, no thought given at all to the situation, to the batsman or the conditions. Even school yard cricket captains seem to give more thought to these things!

What you have quoted here Beny is just one example - the bowling over the whole second and third session, especially to Ponting, was awful, feeding his strenghts, with no fielding to back it up. I blame all the bowlers, the captain, the people in the dressing room and other senior players for that. If I can tell it's a terrible waste watching 10,000 miles away, can't all these professionals out on the ground, who earn their livelihood doing this?

As I said above, the captaincy from both Inzi and Yoyo is unimaginative and tactically naive. That we always knew. However, on the specific point of field placings, we cannot just blame the skipper - the bowler should share the blame, as should the team think tank. How hard is it to send in a message in between overs?

Either the team "think-tank" does absolutely no planning, or no one bothers to follow this planning. In either case, any professional outfit should be ashamed. Even amateurs should do better.

[Seamer]

I think you are being a bit harsh on Pakistan. The fact is that Pakistan is playing a very potent Australian team in Australia - a tough assignment for any team. Pakistan are in the rebuilding stage at the moment. They have ben cruely savaged by injury which meant they could,nt field their best team - i was so looking forward to seeing Inzy bat. The positives are that Pakistan have a fine crop of talented young players, particularly batsmen, which will come good in a few years. One think i have always admired about Pakistan is that they always play aggresive cricket - they score runs quickly and bowl aggresively. Given time (2-3 years), Pakistan will develop into a very fine team

[Beny]

I thought Asif has done exactly what the other bowler can't. He's bowled a line and length. Other than the flaying he got from Gillchrist (understandable as Gilly was superhuman), he bowled very well.

[Zainub]

You're right Asif bowled well, so did Kaneria - but almost everything else in that session was over shadowed by Gilchrist. He played a phenomenal innings, but the quality of the bowling, to be fair wasn't the best you're ever likely to come across.

We took the 2nd new ball today and usually when you do that it's a sign that you want to take wickets but no, we place just the one slip and the rest spread around to save runs being scored from bad balls. So a certain level of criciticism here is due too on Yousuf Youhanna and the bowlers them selves. Maranello is right, you'd expect people like Shoaib Aktar to have a big say in what fields they want, in fact you'd expect all bowlers to have a certain amount of say in the fields they want, with Shoaib you expect it to be more, and him being content with one slip when the team is in dire starits and desperate for a break through and he has new ball to bowl with is questionable.

Why take the new ball then if there really was no intent to attack? Better of bowling with the old scuffed up one, at least that might have resulted in Australia scoring at a slower rate than a staggering 6 an over if nothing more because the softer balls tends to come onto the ball lesser.

No one ever expected us to do anything but lose, especially with this team, but I was confused by our tactics today. Seemed like we were just going through the motions, waiting for things to happen. There was no intent, no purpose, no vision, nothing in it at all. We're all at sea. And are gonna lose by an innings and plenty if the 2nd capitulation in the last 2 tests is anything to go by unless there is divine intervention of some sorts.

Don't know though to which extent the coach can be held responsible, after all he can only tell people what to do, and you really can't blame him if things he's asking people to do are not being done when the team is actually out in the middle.