The offending tweet on Premachandran's twitter page, was carried on the Cricinfo site via their 'World Cup on Twitter' feed

For some reason, the Indian writers on Cricinfo have a strange fascination with Pakistan cricket. In the past it’s been the likes of Sidarth Monga and Samit Chopra, and this time it was Dileep Premachandran on his twitter feed. Premachandran writes for Cricinfo and should be well aware of his position. He also knows full well that his comments are going onto the main site so the excuse that it’s his personal twitter page doesn’t quite wash.

Not very professional for the largest cricket website out there to be publishing personal insults directed at players by their writers.

Having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the 1st Test, today’s batting performance must have left Pakistan’s coaching staff seething. I suppose this would have been mainly to save their own skins as what ever they would have told the players in between the last Test and this one, quite clearly has not worked. It is difficult for the coaching staff to have much effect whilst a match is on going yet in between matches is where they must have an influence. But with four ducks and just three double figure scores (the highest being 39), it seems as if the Pakistani players did not come into this match with a single thought of what had transpired in the last.

Another change to the opening pair saw Fawad Alam come in for Salman Butt. Many had asked for Fawad’s inclusion yet he could only manage 16 runs having being sent in to open which was something he had never done before in an international game. This decision seemed even more bizarre than when Alam was asked to bowl the very important 15th over of the T20 semi-final having not bowled at all in the tournament previously. Sure, Fawad would have been asked if he would like to open today but as a youngster desperate to play for your country, you just say yes, whether its opening or coming in last.

In reality, this was a blatant admission that the squad selection was completely wrong with Butt and Manzoor the only two openers in the squad. With Butt’s poor form coming into the series, it was even more surprising they only selected two specialist openers.

One positive was the innings of Shoaib Malik who had been coming in for some criticism recently. Apart from being one of our best fielders, a decent containing bowler, I think he is very important to our middle order. He remained not out today, scoring 39 having stayed at the crease for more than two hours whilst looking as if he was batting on the same pitch as the Sri Lankans did. His team mates however, did their level best to make a decent pitch seem like it was covered in land mines.

What makes it worse is that Cricinfo has decided to let the jingoistic Sidharth Monga cover the game, and he cannot control himself at the best of times let alone when Pakistan are having a shocker.

Sidarth Monga:

“How Pakistan would want to thank BCCI for the “amnesty” it accorded the ICL players.”

“Once the euphoria of this performance dies, Pakistan will want to thank the man returning to international cricket for allowing them to go ahead with their preferred bowling strategy.”

He is an Indian fan at the end of the day, but he should keep his bias from articles on sites where it is required of him, and expected by us, that he should be impartial. In the past, cricinfo has been accused of being favourable to England and India so I am amazed the editor of cricinfo let this article through as it was.