I still think Ajmal bends his arm more than the allowed angle during his doosra, but the batsmen need to be able to find a way to play him properly. If not out of the hand, then off the pitch.
The bounce got some of our batsmen by surprise. I'll have to say that Samuels and Sammy gave their wickets away. But the wickets of Nash and Bravo really showed that the pitch does have bounce in some areas.
I won't say it's a bad pitch though. Apart from a couple of spots, the bounce is consistent and you can easily play through the line to the seamers. The spinners are getting some grip from the grass that was rolled into the pitch, and that makes hitting against the spin a risky thing. I still think once you get yourself in, you can score big. But we don't play spin well at all, and Pakistan know this. India will be watching closely too.
I don't want to see Bishoo bowling long spells in the second innings. 5 or 6 overs at a time unless he's picking up wickets. Sammy has to throw the ball to Sarwan or Nash and tell them to turn their arms over a bit.
Bishoo has brought the googly out, finally, at least.
Also, I think this pitch might just be good for someone like Lendl Simmons and his medium fast bowling. Off and leg cutters will grip and the bounce will give the batsmen a couple things to think about.
I really want to see Sammy giving the ball to some more players, at least to see what they're doing with it. Pakistan must win this match to draw the series and they will want to score big and score big quickly. That will create chances, and you need players to step up and want to bowl.
If we draw this match, the series is ours, and the Pakistanis know that. They need to set some bait for us, maybe a target of 450 in a day and a session. Those are odds that we'll like. We'll definitely go at that target hard, but they also know that if we lose wickets, we'll just play for the draw. So they have to keep it competitive all the way through. Have someone like Rehman keep the scoring down at one end, forcing us to try to score off of Ajmal. Wickets fall that way.
At the moment, I don't see this match having a result one way or the other. Tomorrow will be a very important day.
