our real batting improvements

[al Furqaan]

the last few days, everyone (myself included) has been lamenting our batting failures. just yesterday, however, i looked up the stats at cricket4.com to see how much better our test batting is with Whatmore at the helm.

the results are that before whatmore our average first innings score was 181. after whatmore they are a much-improved 242.

our opponents average score in the first innings used to be around 450 (can't remember the exact number). now it is 339.

of course the cricinfo article also showed that our opponents run rates have been reduced from 3.68 to 3.16. this is a huge improvement.

so, i'm quite oppotimistic about this test (bashar showed he was not down, ash is back in form, rajin is always dependable, and faisal is a new stalwart).