At the start of the summer I thought that this would be a relatively simple series for England to win. After watching Pakistan play against Australia I now think it could be a lot closer than I imagined. I still make England slight favourites because of their recent form but I do feel that there is one key area where Pakistan have the edge, and that is in their bowling attack. It looks very potent.
They do not have more experience than England's attack but they do have higher skill levels. That seems a strange thing to say given that their stand-out bowler, Mohammad Aamer, is only 18 years old. I think it all comes back to the fact that Aamer grew up playing on wickets that did nothing to help the bowler.
He would have learned from an early age that you have got to be able to do something with the ball to get wickets – you can't just let the pitch do the work for you. If he gets the ball to seam and swing he will be a huge danger to England. If the ball seams, every batsman will struggle because the movement is so late. Add to that the fact that he is a left-armer, and he poses a real challenge.
Starting the series at Trent Bridge will be an advantage for Pakistan. After swinging the ball so effectively at Headingley they are going to a ground which could suit them even more if the conditions are right. When they bowled Australia out for 88, the Pakistanis got their lengths right very early in the innings. They were dragging the batsmen forward. You can tell a bowler to pitch the ball up as much as you want, but it is very difficult to change lengths just like that. Over-pitch and it can soon become expensive. It is not an easy thing to switch and you have to commend Pakistan's skill in finding the right area of the wicket to bowl at so early on.
That said, the Australians do not play swing bowling at all well. England's batsmen will be better at it because they have more experience of it. The basic key to batting against swing bowling is to make sure you hold the line of your shot and do not chase the ball if it deviates late. If the ball beats the batsman he just has to accept that and move on. Players who are not used to facing swing tend to follow the ball and that is when they end up edging catches behind.
England are going to have to think hard about how they play Aamer. They are going to have to try to read his action quickly. They will need to spot the ball that goes straight across the right‑hander because they have got to be careful in guarding against those catches off the outside edge. At the same time they have to be very careful about his in-swinger and the potential for getting out lbw, because Aamer swings it very late. You could see some of the Australians, in particular Shane Watson, having huge problems picking up that late swing.
These more complex aspects of batting technique are the kind of thing I could spend up to an hour explaining in a masterclass. It would take five pages to explain them in detail, but I will try to do it in a paragraph or two here. It is all about time and motion. Australia struggled because they do not use a predetermined forward movement. I call it a "press". Before the bowler releases the ball the batsman has to press half-forward. That allows him to then make a second smaller movement; he can pick up on whether the ball will swing or go straight across and adjust his position accordingly. He is delaying the decision as to where he will finally put his foot until he has picked up the swing of the ball.
Australia did not press, but tended to sit back in the crease. That meant they were making one long movement forward once they picked up on the line of the ball. Then there is no time to move your foot again. They had then committed to the line early and did not have time or space to make that second, smaller movement to adjust to the swing. They were left relying on their hands to get them out of trouble. Then, if the ball came back in to the right-hander, their pads got in the way.
The press is not easy to get right, but it could prove to be the key to this series. For England's batsmen, this could turn into a tough examination of their techniques.
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