Australia / England / Pakistan / Sri Lanka

Pakistan play spin better than Australia

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Different matches and – to be fair to Australia – different degrees of difficulty too. All the same, it seems a fair conclusion to draw.

In England, Azhar Ali and Sami Aslam seemed uncertain whether to milk Moeen Ali or just belt him for sixes. In the end, they reached the conclusion that they’d do both. It wasn’t as if the seamers were doing much better. England ended the day looking a bit fast-medium and more than a little tetchy.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, Australia folded as if prepared by Miura. Bowled out for 106 in their first innings, they sustained much of the damage in three balls from that homicidal capybara, Rangana Herath, who gummed a hat-trick.

Australia’s woes wouldn’t be half as funny if they hadn’t spent much of the build-up to this series talking incredibly earnestly about their gameplans for facing spin.

“It’s about making sure you have a plan from ball one,” said Steve Smith with conviction. “You’ve got to be able to bat well into the next day,” added David Warner – as if that were in any way an option.

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16 comments

  1. It would be slightly less funny still had they not made a big thing of how terrible Sri Lanka are when we beat them earlier this summer. I can’t find any evidence that they actually said this, mind, but because it’s exactly the sort of thing those Aussies would do, it’s definitely a fact that they did.

    Vo-Jizz now averages a mere 82.6 in tests.

  3. A better example of Pakistan being better than Australia is them winning by 10 wickets in SL earlier this year, where Herath and Perera took 0-48 in 6 overs in the 4th innings

  4. Meanwhile at Taunton, the battle to see who can score closest to 180 has been comprehensively won by the mighty Somerset.

  5. I’m not sure what happened in the game — did it get rained off? Aus were batting yesterday, and now this morning?

  6. With an interesting series between England and Pakistan, Sri Lanka tearing Australia apart, and so on, I’ve been thinking: this Test cricket lark is quite good, isn’t it?

  7. Hello King Cricketeers! What were the barmies singing at the end of the day today? I’ll need lyrics if you’ve got them. It’s stuck in my head and will take some shifting… Stuck on repeat like a Vince innings!

    1. Don’t take me home,
      Please don’t take me home,
      I just don’t wanna go to work,
      I wanna stay here and drink all the beer,
      Please don’t,
      Please don’t take me home…

      2. It’s a football song, or at least it came to prominence during Euro 2016, when British fans were singing it a lot early on, particularly England fans. The England fans then weren’t heard singing it in the latter stages of the tournament, for some reason….

        The Evening Standard claims that it is “Set to the tune of Billy Ray Cyrus’s Achy Breaky Heart”, although most of the renditions I have heard have deviated somewhat from Billy Ray’s template, possibly owing to the large quantities of refreshment involved.

      3. Aah, I feel dirty now I know it’s from that soccerball sport. At least the cricket crowd seem to have nailed down the surprisingly complex (for a sports crowd chant) rhythmic and tonal elements very nicely. A superb rendition that went on for ages, with occasional breaks for Moeen, Moeen Moeen… There’s never any mass-participation singalongs when I go to the test!

    2. Public service commenting at its best. We too had wondered about this. Thanks all.

  8. The only thing better than watching Australia collapse twice running is watching Australia collapse twice running while in Australia with some Australians.

    I’m in Australia with some Australians right now, so I know. It’s better.

    1. I thought I had the perfect holiday in Maui with my 3rd wife as one of her clients paid for it, yours seems even better but shouldn’t you have been in Sri Lanka?

    2. I hope there’s a match report or three on the way about this, Bert.

      We need details, especially about the “some Australians”. It would be a travesty of justice to spread those juicy details at the end of threads such as this one.

      I’m already licking my lips at the thought of reading those reports.

      Have you taken any pictures yet of antipodean marsupials showing indifference to cricket? If not, why not? Get on with it, man.

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