If England attack, attack, attack, they will keep collapsing on spinning pitches
Losing the toss on a used Test match pitch that had baked in the sun for four extra days was an enormous disadvantage. To England’s credit, they fought and stayed in the contest until they dropped Salman Agha twice in one over. Those let-offs gave Pakistan the extra confidence and momentum to take the match miles away from England.
If our guys are honest with themselves as a team, they should be asking why on big spinning pitches do they have these big collapses?
One guy will get a big score like Ben Duckett in the first innings but as a unit the top order tends to crumble. It happened in India far too often. The only Test match they won in that series earlier this year was when Ollie Pope put on a one-man show and scored a fabulous 196 in Hyderabad.
I think they have these failures because the players have only one way of batting which is attack, attack, attack to get on top of the opposition bowlers and bully them into submission.
That has worked a lot of times on flat or pretty good batting pitches and that attitude and skill has transformed English cricket.
Most of the time it has been exciting and winning cricket which is brilliant to watch, so none of us wants to complain or get angry when they lose. But we must hope that in defeat they look at how to improve because if they don’t then other countries will prepare more and more spinning pitches when they play England.
Look at some of the dismissals. Zak Crawley was officially stumped in the second innings, or you could say run out because he was miles out of his crease. He was so far down the pitch, he was like a stranded whale on a beach.
In both innings, Harry Brook stayed back trying to whack the spinner just like he did for his triple century on a flat pitch a week ago. This pitch was turning a lot, he had just come in and hardly had time to assess the surface. It was not very smart batting.
Captain Ben Stokes was stumped, or again run out, trying a wild slog after he had done the hard work and played himself in. Why?
Don't forget your bat... 😅
An extraordinary Ben Stokes dismissal as Noman gets his 5-fer! 😲 pic.twitter.com/rdbw7dHNCy— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) October 18, 2024
Pope tried to drive the off-spinner against the spin through the off side and was caught and bowled. The safest way has always been to play with the spin until you are set with plenty of runs against your name. Pope is always a frenetic starter who jabs at the ball with hard hands. It is time he learnt to relax – after all, he has now played 51 Tests.
He should watch Joe Root, who gets right the way forward to smother the ball but hardly ever lets the bat get past his front pad and relaxes the hands. When playing back, keep the bat close to the body and wait for the ball… don’t push at it.
The sweep and reverse sweep is a modern way of batting against spinners and some Test match connoisseurs get upset watching it.
Every era throws up changes but our guys give the impression that some kind of sweep is their first thought, or only thought. That can’t be smart. I understand that if a bowler’s best ball is scored off, it can upset his rhythm and force him to alter his length or line thereby giving the batsman other opportunities.
Spinning pitches have been around since cricket was invented and batsmen of yesteryear scored runs without too much sweeping. DRS now makes orthodox sweeping more dangerous, whereas the reverse sweep looks a better option. I think sweeping would be better used occasionally, and mixed in with the orthodox, safer strokes.
For me, the biggest plus out of the defeat was the bowling of Brydon Carse and Matthew Potts. There was very little in the pitch for the seamers, in fact Pakistan selected only one faster bowler, yet England’s two quicks kept running in with great spirit and determination.
As hot and energy-sapping as it was, they just kept going. In those conditions it would have been easy to get dispirited and let their pace drop. Neither of them did that.
Finding Carse is South Africa’s loss and a huge gain for England. He has good pace and aggression together with a high action that gives him occasional uncomfortable bounce from a good length. That was disconcerting to some of the Pakistani batsmen on a nothing pitch.
They started to sit back and were not keen to get forward. When they did get forward sometimes their weight was not over the ball. If Carse can do that to batsmen on a dead pitch for seamers, then think what he can do on a surface with more pace and bounce. Please stay fit and if he does that, then England may just have found “a real good ‘un”, as they say in Yorkshire.