Pakistan win offers hope for Test cricket
Dwindling crowds have put the five-day game in a crisis, says James Corrigan in the Independent on Sunday , but Pakistan's victory offers hope of reviving interest in the format back home.
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
Dwindling crowds have put the five-day game in a crisis, says James Corrigan in the Independent on Sunday, but Pakistan's victory offers hope of reviving interest in the format back home.
The point is, it isn't Test cricket's fault that it finds itself in a modern world where the kicks must beinstant. So many Tests from that last half decade shows that it still has the propensity to excite and excite in a way which the upstart formats could never contrive. But as the players hunt down the £1m deals and as the fans go in search of high-five thrills, the senior game needs some help.
Scyld Berry, in the Daily Telegraph, calls England's performance with the bat in Dubai as their worst in Asia, but says there is hope of an improved display on a flatter track in Abu Dhabi though it can't be guaranteed.
Saeed Ajmal has planted insecurity into the minds of the England batsmen and, in Abu Dhabi, they'll need to use their minds to master his spin, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo