England bowled like county cricketers, says David Lloyd
Former England cricketer and commentator David Lloyd has strongly criticised the performance of the English side in the ongoing tour of Pakistan and compared the bowling performance to county cricketers, according to his column on SkySports.
’Bumble’ also went to say that the English bowlers did not generate enough pace on the ball like their Pakistani counterparts, and was disappointed with the batting performance as well.
“It was county cricket, I'm sorry to say, with opening bowlers at 76-78mph, whereas Pakistan had Wahab Riaz bowling bouncers and yorkers at 90mph. So it was a bit flimsy with the ball but the batting was nowhere near good enough for a line up as long as this," he stated.
England are having a disastrous tour so far and are yet to win a single game in the UAE thus far, after losing the recent first ODI by 6 wickets. Earlier in a hard-fought test series, Pakistan emerged victorious with a 2-0 win in the three-match series.
Lloyd felt that the England batsmen were responsible for the loss in the first ODI as they failed to score runs on a good wicket and remarked that Pakistan taught England a lesson.
"Pakistan gave England a lesson. Their batsmen looked far better and played much straighter and with more time, so the spotlight is on our batting. With the attack England had out - Joe Root as the sixth bowler - they needed 300 on this 300 pitch, so somebody had to go and get a big hundred.”
In the bowling department, the former batsman asserted that Adil Rashid could have come good with the ball, had the batsmen scored more runs. "Adil Rashid has had a tough time, going for 0-60 from nine overs, but 216 is no use to him - he needs to be defending 300 to come into his own and be potent," he felt.
In defending the modest total of 216, young England bowler Reece Topley impressed with his spell of 3/26, which briefly troubled the Pakistani batsmen atop the order. Lloyd seemed excited by the young bowler, but felt that England genuinely lacked quality pace bowlers.
"Topley did really well, swinging the ball when he got his radar, but there are no bowlers with the pace to put people on their backside," Bumble stated.
England have to pull up their socks if they have to win the ODI series and would definitely want their batsmen to fire them to big totals. Captain Morgan played a decent knock in the first ODI and would want other batsmen to follow suit for the remainder of the series.