England vs Pakistan: 4 players Pakistan should be wary of

Jonathan Trott

Arguably the best in the world at the moment, he is damn effective. Not necessarily attractive, but certainly effective. What stands out is he doesn’t really dead bat or straight bat many deliveries, but still can be extremely resilient, persistent and unflustered in his approach. Trott has a commanding structure and presence at the crease and his wicket is seen as a prize scalp for the opposition. He looks to make the bowlers bowl to his strengths on his hips or legs, controls his scoring strokes all along or neatly placed nudges and works the ball away with ease. He keeps ticking over after group of deliveries or so through a single squeezed out and the odd authoritative well timed boundary in between to break the pattern and put the pressure back on the bowler.

His ODI approach has been criticised heavily despite his justified SR and phenomenal dependability and the likes of Simon Hughes and Nick Knight have even suggested that team’s purposely try to ‘keep him’ as he appears harmless and allows them to control the flow of runs. However, in his support one can argue he holds it together enabling others to build a score around him. Very strong at driving positively when a half volley is dished up, tucking the ball in front of square on the leg side and nurdling away when the keeper is stood up to anything marginally off target. His averages of above 50 in both versions of the game prove his worth. Team Misbah will need to try to get him early and break the shackles. Late inswing early in the piece can do the trick or alternatively just trying to bog him down as much as possible in the hope of a minor concentration lapse which Abdur Rehman will be aiming to do with his obnoxious nagging accuracy.

Ian Bell

Very efficient against spin and tends to do well against Pakistan and has experienced plenty of success against them with his touch play. Uses his feet very well to get to the pitch, strong at getting back and across for the cut and has firm focus to dab the ball about late as late as one can possibly imagine. Furthermore, a specialist useful bat pad fielder just like Azhar Ali of Pakistan who will be in the action throughout. Don’t be surprised to see Bell pile on the runs.

Graeme Swann

My real gut feeling is he’ll be ineffective or his involvement will be limited to more of a containment or restricting option than a genuine match changer or wicket taker in this series. The keen tweeter has got the ability to turn it on with the bat lower down the order and considering the hosts’ recent troubles in removing tailenders, Swann could have some enjoyable times throwing the kitchen sink and swinging from the hip.

Having said that, he can be comically dismissed with the bat. Not shy to experiment, he also can land himself into some hater water and let the anger unleash on him when things are not quite going for him which tends to affect the whole morale of the others which is something Pakistan will want to take advantage of, if and when the opportunity arises.

Matt Prior

I’ll keep this one short: Priceless runs down the order. 3 words: Aggressive, assertive, dynamic. The innings he notched up against India last year at Lords when the match was in the balance after England lost wickets in quick succession was a perfect demonstration of his fearlessness to get after the bowling in a bold manner.

Also, he’s a committed and improved worker behind the stumps who, on current form, will hold on to anything that’ll come his way. To summarise, dangerous player and important member of the squad. The argument that he should come up the order and slot in at number 6 has been well stressed, however England’s reluctance to play the 5 bowlers, to stick by their 4 man attack with their tried and tested policy has got them this far, will result in him staying at #7.