Cricket-Pakistan's Misbah supports England comeback in Sri Lanka

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, who engineered a 3-0 test whitewash of England earlier this year, has backed the world's top-ranked side to bounce back in Sri Lanka because of the strength of their bowlers.
After losing all three tests to Pakistan in the UAE, Andrew Strauss and his men were also humbled by Sri Lanka in their opening test last week and need a quick reaction for the second test starting in Colombo on Tuesday.
"England has a top class bowling attack and when you have quality bowlers at your disposal you can always make a strong comeback in any conditions," Misbah told Reuters in an interview.
"The pitches in Dubai when we played them were more difficult for batting. The pitches are better in Sri Lanka so England can come back.
"They lost to Sri Lanka in one session. They need to focus on the test session by session. When we played them it was a session-to-session battle for us because we knew they were a dangerous side and their bowlers were very good."
England's main downfall has been their batsmen's inability to play spin effectively.
"They are competent against spinners in England but they struggle due to the different conditions they find in the subcontinent or recently in UAE," Misbah added.
"The reason is that their batsmen play in the Asian region only after long gaps."
The Pakistan captain dismissed suggestions that England did not deserve their number one test status and gave his support to the current ranking system employed by the International Cricket Council.
"They became the number one test side after playing well not only at home but in Australia and other countries. But they are in danger of losing their number one ranking if they don't comeback in Sri Lanka," Misbah said.
"I think the system is fair and objective. It takes into consideration home and away matches. But for a country like Pakistan, it becomes difficult to improve our ranking because we haven't played at home since 2009."

Read More

Difficult to improve ranking without home series: Misbah

KARACHI: “For a country like Pakistan, it becomes difficult to improve our ranking because we haven’t played at home since 2009,” said Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, while expressing his support to the current ranking system employed by the International Cricket Council. 
“I think the system is fair and objective. It takes into consideration home and away matches.”
The Pakistan captain, who engineered a 3-0 test whitewash of England earlier this year,  dismissed suggestions that England did not deserve their number one test status.
He backed the world’s top-ranked side to bounce back in Sri Lanka because of the strength of their bowlers.
After losing all three tests to Pakistan in the UAE, Andrew Strauss and his men were also humbled by Sri Lanka in their opening test last week and need a quick reaction for the second test starting in Colombo on Tuesday.
“They became the number one test side after playing well not only at home but in Australia and other countries. But they are in danger of losing their number one ranking if they don’t comeback in Sri Lanka,” Misbah said.
“England has a top class bowling attack and when you have quality bowlers at your disposal you can always make a strong comeback in any conditions,” Misbah told Reuters in an interview.
“The pitches in Dubai when we played them were more difficult for batting. The pitches are better in Sri Lanka so England can come back. They lost to Sri Lanka in one session. They need to focus on the test session by session. When we played them it was a session-to-session battle for us because we knew they were a dangerous side and their bowlers were very good.”
England’s main downfall has been their batsmen’s inability to play spin effectively.
“They are competent against spinners in England but they struggle due to the different conditions they find in the subcontinent or recently in UAE,” Misbah added.
“The reason is that their batsmen play in the Asian region only after long gaps.”

Read More

Cricket: Jayawardene thwarts England in first Test

Sri Lanka: Skipper Mahela Jayawardene crafted a classy century to steer Sri Lanka out of trouble on the opening day of the first Test against England in Galle on Monday.


Jayawardene hit an unbeaten 168 as the hosts recovered from a disastrous 15-3 by the fourth over to move to 289-8 by stumps at a Galle International Stadium packed with some 8,000 English supporters.


Fast bowler James Anderson claimed two wickets off successive balls in his second over and new-ball partner Stuart Broad chipped in with the third after Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat.


Jayawardene retrieved the situation by adding 52 for the fourth wicket with Thilan Samaraweera (20) and 61 for the fifth with young batsman Dinesh Chandimal (27).


Tailender Rangana Herath contributed just five runs in an eighth-wicket stand of 62 with his captain, who reached his 30th century with a paddle sweep off Graeme Swann for a boundary.


As the bowlers wilted under the hot sun, England were left to rue three dropped catches -- two by Monty Panesar and one by Anderson -- that reprieved Jayawardene.


The Sri Lankan captain has so far hit 20 boundaries and three sixes.

Jayawardene surpassed Australian legend Don Bradman's tally of 29 Test hundreds and moved to fourth place among those still playing at the top level behind Sachin Tendulkar (51), Jacques Kallis (42) and Ricky Ponting (41).

Number 10 Chanaka Welegedara kept Jayawardene company at stumps on 10, the pair having added 36 valuable runs.

Sri Lanka's South African coach Graham Ford hailed Jayawardene's "special innings" and said the fightback had ensured his team will be competitive in the match.

Anderson, who claimed his 250th Test wicket with the dismissal of opener Lahiru Thirimanne, said England needed to get over the disappointment of allowing Sri Lanka to bounce back.


Anderson had Thirimanne caught at second slip in his second over and then forced Kumar Sangakkara to edge the next ball to wicket-keeper Matt Prior.


Mahela Jayawardene denied Anderson a hat-trick with a defensive push, but saw his partner Tillakaratne Dilshan perish in Broad's next over to another catch in the slips.


Samaraweera was run out soon after lunch when he backed up too far at the non-striker's end as Anderson deflected a ball on to the stumps.


Panesar conceded just 42 runs in his 23 overs, but Swann's 23 wicketless overs cost 92 runs on a pitch that is already providing uneven bounce.

Read More

Afridi blames batsmen for Pakistan’s loss against England

Islamabad—Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi held the batsmen responsible for the national team’s defeat in the one-day and Twenty-20 series against England last month.

“We must realise that our bowlers can’t win us matches all the time. It is time for the batsmen to also score runs heavily. We lost to England as I thought we were a bit defensive.”

Afridi said Pakistani batsmen needed to be more consistent and support the bowlers, but ducked questions on the captaincy issue. Afridi also feels that the eagerly-awaited Pakistan-India clash in Asia Cup on March 18 at Bangladesh shouldn’t be taken as a World Cup revenge one.

“I don’t think we should look at the match against India as a revenge one. We need to treat every match with same importance and significance,” cricbuzz.com quoted Afridi as saying. Afridi said the team should be more aggressive in the Asia Cup.

“I think we need to be more aggressive in the Asia Cup and our batsmen have to play hard at the bowlers,” he said. Afridi also said he was not up to the mark against England but he will try to do my best in the Asia Cup.

“We need to overcome the mistakes we made in all departments. The Asia Cup won’t be an easy task and we’ll have to be at our best to make an impression”. Afridi, when asked if he would be willing to lead Pakistan again, said he did not want to make any comments on the captaincy.

Afridi was removed as captain by former PCB chairman Ijaz Butt after a rift with then-coach Waqar Younis and many former cricketers believe he still is the right person for the job.

However, reports are there that the PCB had promised Misbah-ul-haq the captaincy till at least the Asia Cup, so he will lead Pakistan, with Mohammed Hafeez likely to be his deputy.—APP

Read More