England will look to get a busy winter of cricket underway with a win when they take on Pakistan in the first Test of three in their UAE tour. The first match begins in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday with both sides knowing the winner of this match goes one up with only two to play.
Pakistan head into the series in good nick after decent series against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in recent times while England will still be buoyed by their Ashes success so that should ensure we get a decent contest over the next month or so.
Pakistan begin this match with a doubt over the leg spin star Yasir Shah. He is rated doubtful for this match but it is going to be a game time decision on whether he will play. One man who definitely won’t feature is Azhar Ali as he is out with an injury.
It looks like Moeen Ali has seen off Alex Hales’ challenge for the opening berth in this series while Steven Finn was ruled out on the eve of the match with injury. Mark Wood is likely to come into the attack as his replacement leaving England with just one selection decision and that is who will keep wicket. Jonny Bairstow looks set to play but if he keeps wicket James Taylor could keep Jos Buttler on the sidelines.
The Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi is the venue for this opening Test and it is one Pakistan enjoy playing at. There have been seven Tests held on this ground with the home side having won four of them and drawn the other three. England have only played here once which ended in an emphatic defeat after they were skittled for just 72 when chasing only 145 to win back in 2012.
Those memories aren’t something England will want to bring up here but we should expect a similar match to most on this ground. The wicket is usually good to bat on for the first three days or so with scores well over 500 common place but after day three expect lashings of turn so batting last will be difficult here.
With Shah’s injury doubt and a couple of other selection question marks I’m going to take a largely watching brief in this first match but there are still a couple of bets which stand out to me as good value.
The first comes in the performance markets where Adil Rashid might be just a touch low at 117. I like that because he’s a more than handy long format batsman and he’ll have one if not two handy batsmen below him so I wouldn’t be surprised if Rashid covers a fair portion of this total with the bat.
He’ll definitely cover some of it with the ball too in conditions which will assist him. I would imagine with Moeen opening the batting Rashid will be given first use of the ball from a spin point of view and while he bowls some filth at times he bowls plenty of wicket taking deliveries too. An average game in both facets should cover this. A good game in either also will so I like the potential on that line.
Misbah-ul-Haq seems to have had doubters his entire career but I’m certainly not one of them. I think he is a really top notch player and I’m expecting big things from him in this match.
The chief reason why I’m expecting such good things from him is he has a ridiculous average of 120.57 on this ground including four centuries in his last four Test innings here and five in his last six.
Clearly something turns him on here so I expect a mountain of runs from Pakistan’s captain. I was tempted to take his performance line in the 80s but given that he doesn’t offer much scoring potential away from the bat I’m going to go a little more extravagant than usual.
Misbah is 7/4 to score 50 or more in the first innings and given he has passed 50 in eight of his 11 innings here that looks good value and given that record of centuries he has the 11/2 he nails one in the first innings also interests me.
Back A.Rashid’s Performance – 117pts or more for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back M.ul Haq First innings 50 for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with William Hill
Back M.ul Haq First innings 100 for a 1/10 stake at 6.50 with William Hill
