Pakistan v England 2012

The series between Pakistan and England is about to begin. Here are the fixtures:

1st Test: Pakistan v England at Dubai
Jan 17-21, 2012 (06:00 GMT)
2nd Test: Pakistan v England at Abu Dhabi
Jan 25-29, 2012 (06:00 GMT)
3rd Test: Pakistan v England at Dubai
Feb 3-7, 2012 (06:00 GMT)

Mon Feb 13 (11:00 GMT) 1st ODI - Abu Dhabi
Wed Feb 15 (11:00 GMT) 2nd ODI - Abu Dhabi
Sat Feb 18 (11:00 GMT) 3rd ODI - Dubai
Tue Feb 21 (11:00 GMT) 4th ODI - Dubai
Thu Feb 23 (16:00 GMT) 1st T20I - Dubai
Sat Feb 25 (16:00 GMT) 2nd T20I - Dubai
Mon Feb 27 (16:00 GMT) 3rd T20I - Abu Dhabi

monty panesar has to be in the team with swann.

cook, strauss, trott, peitersen, bell/morgan, prior, broad, swann, anderson, tremlett/onions,finn, monty

that would be line up for the first test since monty has taken 5wickets in the 1st innnings against pcb11.

the top3 will bat for periods and keep the score ticking, peitersen can score big and very quickly but has shown recently that he can hang around for a long time, prior/broad/swann will score quickly. hopefully england can score between 400-600 the 1st innings, the pace bowlers nasty, vicious and deadly accurate, the spinners are the best at what they do keeping the scoring down and getting wickets.

hopefully this side will prove they can hack it in uae against pakistan but the big test would be india in india on slow, turning and batsman friendly wickets.

test and county pitches over the last few years are prepared towards the batsman where as in 70's, 80's the wickets were prepared to be bowler freindly and would test the batsman mentality and technique.

Shame we won't have Bresnan in the Tests, I would of had him in with Broad, Anderson and Swann with the odd overs from Pietersen and Trott. Missing him means a tiny change of plan maybe, Will we have five bowlers including both Swanny and Monty? Broad at 7 and Swann at 8 in the batting order its a possibility.

I personnally don't see us winning 3-0 but we shouldn't lose the series here, even though Pakistan have been fairly good since they were last over here in 2010 and out in the UAE it'll be hard work.

broad is developing into a decent all rounder, swann can hold a bat to score big runs. from what i have read about the pitches is that they will take to spin therefore 2spin bowlers should be a must also allows the quicks to have a rest between burst of quick nasty bowling they showes against india last summer.

(13-01-2012 13:23 )bigguy01 Wrote:  cook, strauss, trott, peitersen, bell/morgan, prior, broad, swann, anderson, tremlett/onions,finn, monty

that would be line up for the first test

That's 12 players you've named. Cricket's an 11 a side game!

If England did decide on 2 spinners, would they leave out a batsman (Morgan?) or would they leave out a pace bowler and just go in with Broad and Anderson, who would then have a heavy workload?

I think they will probably stick to the usual formula and go with 6 batsman plus Prior, 3 pace bowlers and Swann. They could put Panesar in instead of Morgan, but I think the usual formula is much more likely.

More than likely it will be the usual formula but if they do change it will be Monty for Morgan I believe, always feel dodgy if going into a Test match the attack only has two seam/pace/swing bowlers to count on we don't have a Kallis among our current ranks which would be a great help and he doesn't really have to do too much bowling for SA these days.

It'll be interesting to see how many fans turn up. These stadia in the UAE hold 25,000 - and I understand that only 500 tickets have been sold for the entire series, so far.

Tim Bresnan would have been good on this tour bearing in mind the conditions England are likely to face so his absence is a shame. How England bat will be key imo, especially in the first innings to set the game up. Should be an interesting test series.

We should go with a 5 man bowling attack and leave out Morgan. Go with Broad, Anderson, Tremlett, Monty and Swann.

Bell and Broad should be fit for tomorrow, as they said on SSN this afternoon.