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[Kulli]

england have had a one paced and one style attck for a while yes now theres a little variety with wood/broad/anderson but theres still not that much variety, the only god send is we now have a leg spinner and he'll need time but will he get that? the only time i can see england playing two spinners is overseas in india/uae/sri lanka and so rashid realistically wont play unless two spinners are needed or moeen ali goes down injured!

If Moeen can sneak into the top 7 then that might create the space required for Rashid to play a bit more often than you described above, especially as he's not mug with the bat either.

[alexhilly1492]

ben stokes, englands true all rounder, now it appears he is an off spinner....

[Aussie In England]

Neither Ali or Rashid should be anyway near a Test side pretending to be spin bowlers. Both are average at the very best.

How can England, with 18 county sides, not produce one proper spinner?

[alexhilly1492]

@Kulli i agree but who would he replace? bairstow or buttler?

[RoCo Da Pixie]

Neither Ali or Rashid should be anyway near a Test side pretending to be spin bowlers. Both are average at the very best.

How can England, with 18 county sides, not produce one proper spinner?

There are a couple of youngsters who could be good the problem is the majority of the county game is played in the colder months and hard for them to progress.

Same could be said about Aus with all the state cricket how can they not find decent a world class spinner since Warne retired?

[ppccopener]

so many ex players saying this is far harder than the Ashes are obviously all right. It's about as hard as it gets and no doubt will turn later-it just has to with that much heat on the track.

Expectations from a lot of us are England play outstandingly well and we get a draw, it's that hard to win in the UAE against this Pakistan side.

There will be a huge gulf in the spinners when Pakistan bowl, it's always going to be that way, it's their 'home' ground, Rashid- we(England) have to find out if he can do it at test level-after one test match there's no way anyone knows-he's got to play more. Warne would of been dropped after his first test match.

what we need to do is get stuck in and make a real fight of it in conditions we are not used to.
Most England fans I reckon will be happy with that.
 

[Kulli]

@Kulli i agree but who would he replace? bairstow or buttler?

Buttler, on current form anyway.

[csnew]

ben stokes, englands true all rounder, now it appears he is an off spinner....

Pretty embarrassing!

[Aussie In England]

There are a couple of youngsters who could be good the problem is the majority of the county game is played in the colder months and hard for them to progress.

Same could be said about Aus with all the state cricket how can they not find decent a world class spinner since Warne retired?

We have 6 State sides so a considerably smaller pool of spinners to pick from when Warne retire. McGill was world class but his body fell apart. Then Hauritz was a good bowler and now Lyon is a good bowler.

[RoCo Da Pixie]

We have 6 State sides so a considerably smaller pool of spinners to pick from when Warne retire. McGill was world class but his body fell apart. Then Hauritz was a good bowler and now Lyon is a good bowler.

Who is next in line if Lyon was injured? I am just saying that unless you're a sub continent team then quality spinners are lacking acrross the board.

[petehosk]

All this would not have needed to be discussed if a couple of catches had of been taken and if someone hadn't of overstepped!
So far these three errors have cost 379 runs!!! Let's be generous and say that Bell could have dropped the tougher first catch, but held on to the easy catch. Just the easy drop and the overstep have cost 288 runs so far and counting!
So agree that we need to work on finding a spinner and several other issues. But that will come in time hopefully! The things we need to do immediately are to get the right people in the right fielding positions (slips have to be decent catchers!) and getting bowlers to stop getting so damn close to the no-ball line!!
Work on those things first and we stop giving away 379 runs and counting!!!! 

[petehosk]

We have 6 State sides so a considerably smaller pool of spinners to pick from when Warne retire. McGill was world class but his body fell apart. Then Hauritz was a good bowler and now Lyon is a good bowler.

We don't really give a monkeys what you have! This is the England v Pakistan topic - it's not all about you! Jeez..get over yourself woman! 

[ppccopener]

We have 6 State sides so a considerably smaller pool of spinners to pick from when Warne retire. McGill was world class but his body fell apart. Then Hauritz was a good bowler and now Lyon is a good bowler.

surely it's conditions that develop spin bowling not the number of teams?. The Aussie system of state sides has been held up as the perfect model to develop high quality cricketers all thru the years Australia dominatied.
Now that domination has ended it's a bit rich to say it's because of the same system that produced so many world class players surely?

[alexhilly1492]

england finally have a wicket!!!!! mark wood gets asad shafiq!

[alexhilly1492]

and another!!! stokes gets sarfraz ahmed!!!