As they did in Australia last winter, England’s cricketers go into the first
Test having won all their warm-up games.
Momentum, winning ways, call it what you will, but Andrew Strauss’s side have
harnessed the spark it brings into winning Test matches before and will
trust it serves them well again here when the series against Pakistan gets
under way next Tuesday.
Three-day matches are rarely resolved without a bit of collusion by the
captains, but England
won both theirs in Dubai with minimal interference. Friday's victory against
the Pakistan Cricket Board XI was utterly comprehensive, after they
dismissed their opponents for 150, a marker that cannot fail to have been
noticed on the adjacent ground where Pakistan
proper were practising.
Unlike the first innings, when Monty Panesar snaffled five scalps, the wickets
were split equally between spin and pace. This time Panesar finished with
three, but the fact that he and Graeme Swann had to work harder for their
successes, and with the pace bowlers offering wicket-taking options on what
was essentially a seventh-day pitch, playing two spinners in the Test is far
from being a foregone conclusion.
What should not be is playing Panesar in place of Swann, who looks undercooked
in both mind and body. Before his 10th over on Friday, the off-spinner was
seen flexing his left quadriceps muscle, which had stiffened enough to keep
him off for most of the final day in the first game. In the first Test he
could be called upon to bowl at least 60 overs, so he needs to be in tip-top
condition
