Batting assistance for the Pakistani openers

[Wanderer]

The Pakistani opening batsmen (Imran Farhat, Salman Butt and Shoaib Malik) will be receiving help to counter the England seam attack this summer.

No, not a special coach or something similar, but new bats. A specialist bat maker and former test player who owns a small factory in Sialkot, are making "special" bats for them. Says Mr. Ahmed: "The idea is to make bats for Malik and the others with which they feel more comfortable. Their bats will be ready to use but have more punch and their handles will also be more shock absorbent"

This is the same company that made Ponting's bat (now withdrawn).

So, how will these bats help with the "side-ways movement" expected? The way I see it, whether a bat is light or heavy or shock-absorbent..will not help much if you don't middle it?

Sorry for the silly question, but take it from whence it comes. Someone whose bats didn't even have a name on them

source: Reuters

[Lemming]

The one thing they can do is to kidnap Matthew Hoggard and hold him until the series is over. Hoggard has made plenty of left-handers his walking wicket over the past few years, he will be licking his lips at the prospect of the odd Pakistani left-handed opener.

But it will be a test for the Pakistan openers, in England you have to play the ball late and have the ability to wait for the swing and the inability to follow the ball leaving you off the pitch.

[Zainub]

Of course it will be tough for our openers in England, but then again, nothing is easy any where, or is it? When England came to Pakistan they were supposedly the best team in the world and we weren't even suppose to get a sniff of a chance, but didn't quite turn out that way, did it? In fact, England were pretty much thrashed in the 3rd test, and had it not been for our stupid catching problems they would have been thrashed in the 2nd as well, the first test on the other hand we should have been thrashed in but England blew it up, and as a matter of fact, we pretty much dominated the entire tour, one-days, tests, think England even lost a warm up game some where, didn't they? Any how, all that's besides the point, conditions in England are going to be tougher for us, I don't have lot of faith in our openers either, I expect them to do no better or worse then they usually do on most away tours, but our middle order is quite strong, and given what I've heard/seen of England's early seen form (read Lawrence Booth's last week Spin and he wasn't too sure about this England bowling attack) I'm fairly confident we'll put up a good show over all. Initially I thought a lot would depend on wheather Shoaib Akhtar gets fit in time or not, but now I don't think that is neccessarily going to be very, very crucial factor, Rana Naved is in dream run in County Cricket for Sussex and if he can do half as well for us in the tests, then along with Asif , Razzaq and Kaneria we'd have quite a potent attack. I'm feeling pretty good about this tour and our chances.

[muhammad]

i believe in the phrase ' its not the gun but the man behind the gun who wins battle' .. same is the case with openers if salman butt dont know how to drive then what the difference a special bat can make . and if farhat cant stop checking the ball pitched out side of offstump what the difference a special bat can make. if malik dont know how how to play cover drive along the ground what the difference a bat can make ........ i think these players dont need new bats but good tips on their batting and heavy batting practice