So, ahead of facing England in a 4 match test series and one-dayer's Pakistan are, hopefully softening the Aussies up for us before the Ashes, having already taken the T20 series 2-0 last week.

They've had a good first day at Lords with the Aussies on 229/9 at close of play, wickets have been shared around and all the bowlers did OK, with the exception of Afridi - the attack looks good on paper but it will be interesting to see how they get on tomorrow once they get into bat.

Not very well was the answer. What was Afridi doing? When it needed a skipper with a cool head to marshal the tail and get as near to their score as possible, 30 off 15 balls wasn't all that helpful. Still, that's Afridi I suppose.

They should be nicely prepared to play England

30 off 15 eh? So the captaincy has calmed him down a bit!

If only they could put the politics aside, the addition of an in-form Younis Khan and Mohammed Yousuf could make such a big difference to that side.

Just putting an article together about it, but I'll use my punchline here anyway:


It wasn't a captain's knock, but it was [ithis[/i captain's.

In fact, [url=http://cricket-balls.blogspot.com/2010/07/played-skipper.htmlhere you go[/url

And less than 24 hours of my searing critique of Afridi's captaincy, [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/8829932.stmhe's quit Tests[/url!

I have great power.

It's a shame they couldn't get Lords anywhere near full.

I know money is tight, but I think they'd have got a few more in charging £20 for the day ....

Judging by the amount pleas in the local papers for support and emails about tickets I've been getting for the Headingley test I think there will be plenty of empty seats this week too.

As well as targetting the "Pakistani community" I think they'd have also attracted a lot more neutrals with better pricing, especially as it is unlikely to go the whole 5 days.

They were advertising it through my door in Headingley aswell so i assume there is still plenty of tickets available

I'd go if i wasn't back at home for the summer.

There's a few of us coming over for Wednesday. What's the early weather forecast looking like?

Pakistan are absolutely di*king the Aussies at Headingley.

Aussies are 41-5 after 17 overs, with only Katich (13) hitting double figures.