Ponting wary of 'Dangerous Pakistan'

[Bumper]

Ahead of the test series, Ricky Ponting mentioned that he was wary of dangerous Pakistan. You will be forgiven for thinking that Ponting was talking about Pakistan's bowling attack. So did I. Little did we know that the mischievious Ponting was infact talking about Pakistan, the country, with its current state of affairs, with Taliban et al ruling that place. These naughty Aussies are always up to something, aren't they ? Can't fault them though, when your meat eating 17 year old (I know that was 17 years back, but still you gotta go by the books), 150 kph, next Wasim Akram goes wicketless on a bouncy pitch against two openers who have hardly played less than ten tests together. And when you hear that Punter, who was reportedly in the hospital and barely able to walk till morning, jumped on this trousers on hearing that the Pakistanis are at the MCG, you know right away what he meant by dangerous Pakistan. One way or the other, the greatest pace attack in the world has arrived at the MCG. You will have to wait till the third day to see them in action.

[EnterTheVoid]

In fine form Bumper. What was that about Mark Nicholas and Aamir's age ? Did he really say that Mowgli looked 22 ?

[Bumper]

I wasnt tuned in when Mark Nicholas made that comment, but you should add/multiply the stated age with a predefined factor.

[Desi Cartman]

I Sharma + P Kumar + Joginder Sharma > Current Pak Phaast boilers

[Bumper]

I dont know which country hypes its cricket players more. India or Pakistan! We make instant heroes based on one or two performances. Surely enough most of them disappoint. Since the rise of the player is meteoric, the fall too is abysmal. In Pakistan's case, i thought their position in the ICC ranking may not be reflective of their true strength. I could be right, but for the opposite reason. I think WI is a better test team and given that NZ almost beat them in the recent test series, Pakistan should only be ahead of Bangladesh!

[Rajiv]

Bumper should get the Medal of Humous Award

[achilles]

Very well written :two_thumbs_up:

[Bumper]

Today Asif says "MCG is like Faislabad". But but but, isn't an all time great pace attack like this one, supposed to be surface agnostic ?

[vvvslaxman]

They have a catch-22 situation. If the pitch is juicy they will be bowled out for totals like 59, 53. If the pitch is flat their bowlers will be toothless.

[Bumper]

Are you buying into the flat pitch thingy ? MCG is always a good batting surface in the first couple of days. I am sure had Pakistan batted first they would have been 8 down for 240 by now.

[vvvslaxman]

Na.. it is their excuse for their toothless bowling.

[riya]

Hmm..perhaps they should really eat all sorts of ''meat''.Eating pork might help in dropping catches.U know what the pork eaters are the best catchers :winky:

[vvvslaxman]

They accept their fielding is the worst in the world just to prove that their bowling does not suck. Fact is their bowling also sucks. How many times actually they beat bat. West Indies also put down lot of chances. So did India. Another thing is they always miss the player who is not in the playing XI.

[Show_stopper]

I agree with VVS actually. Some of you guys supporting their attack need to do a rethink. I mean how many times should they egt the benefit of the doubt? Our bowers outperformed theirs in SL and now it appears at the MCG. MCG has always employed drop in wickets...so you can't say it was flat just today..its been flat for ages. If this Aamer guy is so good..why is he averaging 47 after 7 matches? And it looks like this is the first time he is facing a quality batting line-up. Ajmal is no better..failed in lanka,NZ and now Aus. Even Bhajji managed to get a 5-fer in SL and NZ atleast once. Asif has barely finished playing 4 games since his comeback..and their 3rd seamer whoever that is is worse in the Test format. And lets not go OTT in our criticism of our own pacers..the pitches employed in Ind are such. I'm sure if the Pak team were to visit now..their bowlers would get hammered. Even in the CT game their pacers bowled worse than ours..it was Afridi who saved their @sses. Our bowlers have been outperforming their's for quite sometime now...the reason why we have more away victories than them.

[Show_stopper]

Oops: Just rea;ised i posted in the wrong thread!!!

[vvvslaxman]

They have this ridiculous theory that teams make flat pitches to negate their pace bowling. Hello. Ireland in 2007 world cup, ring a bell. They were whinging that Pakistan was deliberately given seaming pitch. Now they are whinging they are given flat pitch lol. Fact is they suck on both pitches.

[Show_stopper]

well said VVS.

[Dhondy]

Bumps, I had a look at the "17-year" old and I really liked the shape of the ball coming out of his hand. I don't think he'll be a 25- bowler, but should comfortably average around 30-34 in Test cricket- about the same as Zaheer & Anderson. Not bad.

[Bumper]

Bumps' date=' I had a look at the "17-year" old and I really liked the shape of the ball coming out of his hand. I don't think he'll be a 25- bowler, but should comfortably average around 30-34 in Test cricket- about the same as Zaheer & Anderson. Not bad.[/quote'] Definitely not a bad bowler, but not the kinda bowler he was touted to be. Its too early to say, but i doubt he is even going to have the success that Ishant had in Australia. People dont realize how difficult it is to scale one's skills from the T20 & ODI formats to the Test level. We have seen so many genuine strike bowlers in ODI cricket, struggle to disturb the top order in Tests. What do you think of Asif ? Is he as good as his average suggests ? Or has he just profited from playing in helpful tracks so far ? To his credit he did manage to pick the two wickets that fell in the day. The outswinger that got Ponting out was a beauty. But so far he has only bowled well on bowler friendly tracks (in Lanka, NZ, SA). If these guys dont manage to average less than 30 or so in this tour then all the hype is just that -- hype. For comparison, Dale Steyn picked 18 wickets @ 26 in his last tour to Australia. Even in the following battles in South Africa, where he had a relatively less successful series, he managed 16 wickets @ 29. Shoaib Akhtar & Sami were far more successful then these two.

[Dhondy]

Definitely not a bad bowler, but not the kinda bowler he was touted to be. Its too early to say, but i doubt he is even going to have the success that Ishant had in Australia. People dont realize how difficult it is to scale one's skills from the T20 & ODI formats to the Test level. We have seen so many genuine strike bowlers in ODI cricket, struggle to disturb the top order in Tests. What do you think of Asif ? Is he as good as his average suggests ? Or has he just profited from playing in helpful tracks so far ? To his credit he did manage to pick the two wickets that fell in the day. The outswinger that got Ponting out was a beauty. But so far he has only bowled well on bowler friendly tracks (in Lanka, NZ, SA). If these guys dont manage to average less than 30 or so in this tour then all the hype is just that -- hype. For comparison, Dale Steyn picked 18 wickets @ 26 in his last tour to Australia. Even in the following battles in South Africa, where he had a relatively less successful series, he managed 16 wickets @ 29. Shoaib Akhtar & Sami were far more successful then these two.

People don't appreciate the effect of pitches flattening out on bowlers, Bumps. Notwithstanding the idiotic rants of the two Simons, they really are flattening out all over the world, not just in the subcon. Of the top dozen wicket-takers in 2009, only 2 averaged below 30, that too by a whisker. For the first time in history, India didn't have a team total below 300 in a year...I could go on. Hence, 30 will be the new 25 as far as bowling goes. Aamer should be among the top 10, not in the Steyn class, but perhaps up there with the Siddles, the Morkels, the Ishants? Asif has two big problems. Without the aid of steroids, his pace is down around 130 kph. Secondly, the next time his dicky elbow goes, he won't be able to speed up healing with nandrolone. Nevertheless, he remains a supremely skillful and brainy bowler, moves the ball both ways, and above all, has almost complete control over line & length. However, the global flattening applies to him as well, particularly so with the drop in speed. He is going to suffer badly as a result, and that average will balloon in no time at all.