Cricket: International Discussion Thread

Lunch | Day 3

Pakistan 566/3d
New Zealand 81/3 (34.0 ov)

New Zealand trail by 485 runs with 7 wickets remaining in the 1st innings

Pakistan will be extremely pleased. Yet again, they've pulled off the trick of finding plenty of help from a surface that the other team could squeeze barely anything out of. This is an excellent bowling attack, and all of them have chipped in to leave New Zealand three down. Tom Latham has looked very calm and organised, trusting his method of playing late off the back foot, but he has loads more work to do after lunch.
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Tea | Day 3

Pakistan 566/3d
New Zealand 186/5 (64.0 ov)

New Zealand trail by 380 runs with 5 wickets remaining in the 1st innings

Tom Latham 87*

Off go the bails and that is tea. A couple more wickets for Pakistan, but New Zealand showed they have the capacity to tackle this bowling attack. Latham has moved along to his highest Test score, and Watling has looked busy and compact in the time he's spent at the crease. New Zealand will wish, however, that their two allrounders didn't give away their wickets, with Neesham playing a particularly poor shot to get out.
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Now if you were an Aussie, Latham would be itching to move off 87. It's the equivalent of our 111 :p
 
Zulfiqar Babar to Latham, FOUR, there it is! It's a maiden Test hundred for Latham. It's tossed up on middle stump and he shuffles down the pitch and clips it away down the ground, between the stumps and mid-on. Races away for four, as so many of his shots have done today. Shy smile and a minimalist lift of helmet and bat.
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Well done, fella! He'll need to go on a lot further to guide NZ to safety.
 
Innings Break | Day 3

Pakistan 566/3d
New Zealand 262 (87.3 ov)
New Zealand trail by 304 runs with 0 wickets remaining in the 1st innings

Latham 103
Rahat Ali 4/22
Zulfiqar Babar 3/79

Pakistan's openers ran quickly back to the dressing room, as did Watling, so I assume they haven't. Yup. Pakistan will bat again. They'll have to face seven overs today. Just like New Zealand yesterday evening.
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Three

The number of New Zealand father-son pairs who have scored Test hundreds - the Hadlees, Rutherfords and now Lathams
 
Stumps | Day 3

Pakistan 566/3d & 15/0 (6.0 ov)
New Zealand 262

Pakistan lead by 319 runs with 10 wickets remaining

And that is stumps. It's getting a little monotonous, but I'll say it again. Another dominant day for Pakistan. They bowled New Zealand out for 262, despite a fine maiden Test century for Tom Latham, and decided to bat again. Their openers survived that last half hour without any real alarms, and their lead is now 319 with two full days to go.

One last thing before we go, here's something for you to read. Today's stats round-up by Bishen Jeswant. A couple of startling facts in it, highlighting New Zealand's opening troubles recently, and how Tom Latham seems to be solving one half of the issue.
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4 Number of 50-plus scores by New Zealand openers in 2014. All four of these have been by Tom Latham. New Zealand have tried four different opening combinations in 2014; no other team has more.

0 Number of 50-plus opening stands for New Zealand in Tests in 2014. India and Zimbabwe are the other teams that also have none. New Zealand's openers posted 33 runs in their first innings, which was their first 23-plus opening stand in 12 innings. The last time they posted more, was also 33.

2 Number of father-son pairs from New Zealand who had scored Test hundreds before Tom Latham today. The two previous pairs are Richard & Walter Hadlee, and Hamish & Ken Rutherford. The latest additions to this list are Tom and Rod Latham.

8 Number of instances when Pakistan have batted first and taken a 300-plus first-innings lead. Two of the eight instances have come in their last two Tests, against Australia and now New Zealand, both in Abu Dhabi.

6 Number of balls played by Ross Taylor to score zero. He has never before played more than two balls for a Test duck. Geoff Allott holds the record with a 77-ball duck against South Africa in 1999.

103 Runs scored by Tom Latham in New Zealand's first innings. He is the third youngest New Zealand opener (22 years and 221 days) to have made a Test century, and the youngest in the last 35 years.

3 Runs scored by Kane Williamson today. He has five single-digit scores in his last 19 Test innings, with three of those being scores of exactly three.
 
3rd Test: Bangladesh v Zimbabwe at Chittagong, Nov 12-16

Lunch | Day 1

Bangladesh 91/0 (31.0 ov)
Zimbabwe

Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat

http://www.espncricinfo.com/bangladesh-v-zimbabwe-2014-15/engine/match/760785.html

It's been a terrific toss to win for Bangladesh and they were helped early with some awful new-ball bowling from Zimbabwe. Imrul Kayes was making a comeback, and he was not put under any pressure with the line of attack being considerably wide of off stump. He has since looked rather jittery, but his partner Tamim Iqbal has been playing well within himself. It's only been one session, but already the most trouble to the batsman has come from the spinners. Chittagong usually provides a run-fest that ends in a draw, but the host spinners would be backing themselves to change that. We'll be back to bring you the second session, but in the meantime, here's some food for thought, and I get the feeling it might become relevant as the game goes on
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3rd Test: Bangladesh v Zimbabwe at Chittagong, Nov 12-16

Stumps | Day 1

Bangladesh 303/2 (90.0 ov)
Zimbabwe

Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat

Tamim 109
Imrul 130

The toss went their way, Mushfiqur had no hesitation in batting and his openers provided him with a dominating 224-run partnership - a record for Bangladesh. Both Tamim Iqbal and the returning Imrul Kayes struck centuries and forced Zimbabwe to wilt. Not that the visitors posed much challenge. They lacked in the spin department, their quicks were very wayward with both new balls. The pitch did not offer much assistance, but Brendan Taylor would have liked a little more discipline and perhaps some dot ball pressure to make a play. As it stands though, Bangladesh have crossed 300 and look set for many more. Join us tomorrow to see just how much
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1st Test: New Zealand v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Nov 9-13

Stumps - Day 4

Pakistan 566/3d & 175/2d
New Zealand 262 & 174/8 (54.0 ov)

New Zealand require another 306 runs with 2 wickets remaining

Pakistan have this in the bag barring a tsunami or worse in the UAE.
 
Lunch - Day 2

For Zimbabwe there nightmare continues...

Bangladesh 384/5 (119.0 ov)
Zimbabwe
Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat

It's been a much better morning for Zimbabwe, and their secret weapon Hami M has plucked out a bonus wicket to make it three for the session. Still, Bangladesh have are a comfortable 384 for 5, with Shakib Al Hasan at the crease. Some more strangling needs to be done. Lots of patience will be required. A hard session's play coming at you, folks. Join us in about 40 minutes
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And for New Zealand, their nightmare ends in 2 wickets time. They have been dominated throughout the match.
 
A CONFIDENT DECLARATION?
175
The score at which Pakistan declared - their lowest against New Zealand and their sixth lowest ever.
 
It just goes to show how amazing our test team is. We have been the only team (bar sri lanka, they got 1 draw) in recent times to goto the UAE and grind out a result. Aussies got whipped, NZ getting whipped, England got whipped
 
100% agreed @poffle.

And as I write this, I see the final wicket has fallen:

Imran Khan to Sodhi, OUT, Imran might just have done it! It's full, and he's struck on the pad as he's halfway forward. Given out and New Zealand have reviewed. It struck him below the knee roll in front of middle stump. Is the angle taking it down the leg side? Big angle in, but it's clipping leg stump according to Hawkeye. The decision stands, and Pakistan have won a massive win.

IS Sodhi lbw b Imran Khan 63 (102b 7x4 1x6) SR: 61.76
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Pakistan 566/3d & 175/2d
New Zealand 262 & 231 (70.3 ov)

Pakistan won by 248 runs
 
Misbah-ul-Haq is now Pakistan's most successful Test captain. He's never captained them in a single Test match at home, but he's made their new home, the UAE, an absolute fortress. Fantastic performance in this Test, went a little ragged towards the end, but don't let that distract you from the bigger picture.
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Duly noted and acknowledgement is 100% deserved... but then there are the Saffers! :twisted:
 
Presentation time. First up for the interviews, it's Brendon McCullum. "Obviously we were clearly second in this Test match," he says. "Congratulations to Misbah and his team. They were dominant in this Test match and we have a fight on our hands in the next two games. We've got to make sure we keep improving. Spin is obviously a threat but so is reverse swing. It's a Test match we will take a lot of learning from, but we were clearly second best. For a New Zealand team to come out here, Australian team as we saw as well, it's very difficult, mostly starting your innings [against spin], with those men around the bat. The partnerships at the end of our innings gives us confidence for the rest of the Test match. I thought we bowled pretty well. Conditions were much slower in the first two days and it got quicker as it went on. It would be nice if we could win the toss, bat first, and put some scoreboard pressure on Pakistan, but at the moment, hats off to Pakistan, they played the perfect Test."

Misbah: It's a great feeling to be part of the winning team. It's a young team, nobody expected us to perform like this. I'm really thankful to all the persons who supported me on and off the cricket field. The important thing is always never lose hope, especially as an individual. Always believed in myself, always believed if I work hard, it's definitely going to pay off. Sometimes you have to be patient. It was an absolute disaster for me, I didn't get any runs in Sri Lanka and one-day series against Australia, but I kept calm through that. You just needed one person to stand up and give a good performance, I've already mentioned that partnership between Younis and Azhar Ali in the first Test against Australia. That was a key moment for us. And the way the youngsters have bowled, everyone has the belief that we can do it. I don't want to give up our good work, because it can change very quickly, and we have to focus on the basics and keep doing them right."

Rahat Ali is the man of the match. "It's my first man of the match. Very happy. Waqar's coaching and Mushtaq's support are helping me a lot. They gave me a lot of plans. Mainly it was to bowl a lot of dot balls and bowl wicket-to-wicket. I've worked very hard with the coaching staff and I want to keep performing like this in the future."

http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan-v-new-zealand-2014/engine/match/742611.html
 
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