Pak v Aus Second Test

Pakistan backed in from 300 to 8.0 this morning

Somewhat bold declaration by Australia in this third test - going for the win.

England set WI 280odd in ~60. Australia 351 in 121 (against a much better batting lineup).

Pakistan in to sub 4.0, from healthy chunks matched north of 50.0.

didn't really understand why Oz didn't get on with it a bit sooner and set a tougher ask...carrot dangling always referenced but a very generous dec by modern standards and out of sync with the grind of the series.

Missed you on the Windies threads, b - became something of an echo chamber

This could be a superb final day tomorrow...

very kind...but realised I was spending too much time reading and posting and not enough concentrating on what I was supposed to be doing

hope you're well anyway and as you say nicely set up...

No surprise Smith wants to go for the one he holds onto

Definitely out, but he's not to know that.

This could be quite exciting.

Sadly inevitable finish but with hindsight shows what great foresight Cummins showed with his declaration.

Sadly Babar didn’t hang around long enough to put the Aussie bowlers under pressure. If that target just fell below 100 we would all have been in for a treat.

Perhaps easy to be said when your bowling includes Cummins, Starc & Lyon but...

Thinking about winning, rather than thinking about losing, when making a declaration is paramount.

In fact, thinking about winning is probably half the battle.

There's some stat (that I'm going to recreate by making up the numbers here..) along the lines of:

World Cup penalty shootouts throughout history...

The guy that strides up to take the penalty to win the tie scores ~95%

The guy that strides up to take the penalty to not lose scores ~37%

Boils so much of life down for me, that.

Think about success, succeed. Think about failure, fail.

Right, enough of my drivel...

Over to England's bowlers in a couple of hours after a sunny walk up some small hills.

Good point ( not about the drivel! )

Positive vibration yeah
Live as you want to live

Jah love

Another professional performance from Captain Cummins and the boys. How test match cricket should be played with a great declaration from the skipper.

felt as though he bowed to media pressure over his previous decs or lack of to me (was trying to remember the last time I'd seen a team bat in to day 3 without weather at Karachi) ...but all is well that ends well..and was a very decent effort from Oz in other respects through the series..

not sure why Pak weren't over preparing pitches and subjecting Australia to trial by spin from early in the game but maybe the tv and sponsor money dictated a long series and some of the reverse swing spells from Australia were of the highest order you could wish to see (mention to the Pak youngster Naseem on that front)..

You could be right about that. I must admit I would have batted on for longer. Cummins has really fitted well into the role as captain and his bowling performances have been top drawer. Comes across as a top guy too. Right to mention young Naseem. He looks a fine prospect.

That was a brave declaration no doubt. But they proved it was enough.

I was reading that Ramiz Raja introduced drop in pitches as soon as he was made chairman(or president whatever their rank is). I don't know how hard it is to deal with drop in pitches but it seems the Pakistanis got something wrong handling the pitch rather than making dull pitches on purpose.