England vs Pakistan; Head to Head

Its time to get over from the success and records of Pakistan during the last year (2011). Now the focus is the upcoming series of Pakistan and England, in UAE. Considering the success rate of England in recent years and the win of Ashes last year, have boost the moral of England cricket team. Also not to forget the fact that England has been playing with tremendous talent and experience, not only in their batting department but also the bowling department cruise them to many wins. Trott, Bell, Alastair cook, Strauss, Peterson, Morgan, Ravi Bopara the solid batting line, and the question is that whether Pakistan bowling attack has this ability to get them knocked.

Recently Pakistan team has proved on given situation the bowling could turn the match into their favour, with Saeed Ajmal, Wahab Riaz, Umer Gul and Abdur Rehman in the squad. But at the occasions the batting did flop and a form of worry, the highest scorer Taufeeq Umer scored three century last year but more than six occasions he couldn’t score a double digit in his innings.

The bowling attack of SriLanka, and Bangladesh created a lot of problem to Pakistan batting line up, with no big names in the squad of two. Therefore we can imagine how hard it would be to face pace attack of England, with Finn, Anderson, Bresnan and the swing master Swan.

Considering the last year England only played one series on the death soil in India (likewise of UAE), and seems that India won the series single handedly, Also Pakistan had not played to first four ranked Test teams last year. But manage to record win against SriLanka, which were ranked above Pakistan. Never the less England could be dangerous under any condition and circumstances, with that I hope Pakistan will continue to exhibit its unpredictable nature, and do surprise us with some extraordinary performance. 

England squad

Andrew Strauss (c), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Tim Bresnan, Alastair Cook, Steven Finn, Monty Panesar, Matt Prior (wk), Chris Tremlett, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Steve Davies (wk), Eoin Morgan, Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott

Pakistan Squad

Misbah-ul-Haq (c), Abdur Rehman, Adnan Akmal (wk), Aizaz Cheema, Imran Farhat, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Talha, Saeed Ajmal, Taufeeq Umar, Umar Akmal, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Younis Khan

England Series; an opportunity or thread

2012 starts with a challenge in its hands, as the winning run continue in Bangladesh, the real test is now in front of Pakistan team with they face England in coming January. This encounter composed of 3 Tests, 4 ODIs and 3 T20s. World T20 champion England has put up a consistence show accept the last series against India in India. It was quite an unfortunate series with not much good memories.

On the other hand Pakistan also being consistent, considering the aftermath of spot fixing controversy. They are spot on with six consecutive ODI series wins. And three Test series win this year, with Bangladesh Series yet to decide. But in this victory run no big teams like India, England or Australia is included. But with SA they manage a drawn series. So it would be tough to say which team has dominant factor, as England only play once in low bounce, slow tracks this year and terribly disappoint their fans. And Pakistan has a challenge to play against strong batting and bowling unit. 

Among the two teams Pakistan’s batting has continue to be as uncertain as any associate team. Ups and downs in wicket-keepers continues, last two series three different wicket-keepers for three different format is a question, do keeping techniques changes with the format of play? The same question mark is whether Pakistan could continue with the winning run and make another record, and show the world that we are as good as any world’s top team. We’ll see . . . . .