da betobet： Test matches in the UAE tend to unravel after three days of slow cricket, and the Pakistan-Sri Lanka encounter is no different
da bet7： Shiva Jayaraman30-Sep-2017Test matches take time to unfold in the UAE. The heat, more than anything else, saps the pace out of the match. Batsmen find it difficult to find the concentration that is required to score runs in these conditions. Pitches aren’t exactly belters, and scoring is not easy. Pitches don’t wear down in the first three days of the match and wicket-taking is tough. Cricket is at its attritional best: batsmen try to wear down the bowlers, bowlers try to return the favour and the heat wears down everyone.This Abu Dhabi Test has been a perfect example of Test cricket in this side of the world: the build-up to the finish is slow and the build-up lasts longer than it does elsewhere. In seven out of the nine sessions so far, the economy for the session has been less than 3.0 runs an over and at most two wickets have fallen.This is the only match in the last ten years that has seen as many as seven such ‘slow’ sessions in the first-three days. There are only three other instances in the last decade with six such sessions in the first three days of a match and three of those have come in the UAE. The previous such match was played almost three years ago, between Pakistan and New Zealand in Sharjah.
Test Season Venue, Country Slow SessionsPak v SL 2017-18 Abu Dhabi, UAE 7Pak v NZ 2014-15 Sharjah, UAE 6Pak v SL 2013-14 Dubai, UAE 6Zim v Pak 2011-12 Bulawayo, Zimbabwe 6UAE has hosted Tests that have had the highest percentage of such slow sessions in the last five years. On an average, Tests in the UAE have 3.2 such sessions per match – one session a match higher than the next country of venues in the list, the West Indies. England is at the other end of the spectrum producing on an average just one such session per match.
Country Tests Slow sessions Total Sessions (overs >=28) %age slow sessions Slow sessions/TestUAE 17 55 135 40.74 3.2WI 18 40 115 34.78 2.2ZIM 9 25 77 32.46 2.8SA 22 32 110 29.09 1.5NZ 21 39 144 27.08 1.9IND 27 54 223 24.21 2.0SL 25 42 179 23.46 1.7BAN 18 25 119 21.00 1.4AUS 27 33 177 18.64 1.2ENG 34 33 186 17.74 1.0Not surprisingly then that the UAE has hosted the highest percentage of five-day Tests in the last five years. That is not to say that you don’t get ‘result’ pitches in the UAE: As many as 13 of the 16 Tests played in the last five years in the UAE (before the ongoing one) have ended in a decisive result. That’s a result percentage of over 80% – by-and-large similar to other parts of the world if you discount rain-affected matches in countries like New Zealand and Bangladesh. It is just that Tests in this part of the world play out over the full five days more often than not. And if that’s anything to go by, there’s much more that is left to be unravelled in Abu Dhabi over the next two days.
Country 5-day wins Tests won Mats % 5-day wins Win %age UAE 11 13 16 84.6 81.3 ZIM 6 9 9 66.7 100.0 SL 15 23 25 65.2 92.0 WI 8 16 19 50.0 84.2 BAN 5 11 18 45.5 61.1 IND 10 23 27 43.5 85.2 AUS 9 21 27 42.9 77.8 NZ 5 14 21 35.7 66.7 ENG 10 30 35 33.3 85.7 RSA 6 18 22 33.3 81.8* Slow sessions have been taken as those with scoring rates of less than 3.0 and fewer than 3 wickets (min 28 overs bowled)