Cricket: Dolly Drops Leave Pakistan in a Right State

On his website bobwoolmer.com, the coach of Pakistan revealed that his priority for Lord's was to get his players into the "IPS".

That is the Ideal Performance State, to those whose minds are not yet open to the secret truths of sporting acronyms. The Ideal Performance State is the second of Bob Woolmer's four states of cricketing being.

Please try to concentrate, otherwise you may well be dismissed as GROLI, which happens to mean Guardian Readers Of Limited Intellect, as if such a thing could possibly exist.

The first state of cricketing being is the Awakened State, which leads you skipping happily into the Ideal Performance State. But too much IPS and you might slip into the Complacent State, at which point the Failed State is an inevitable consequence. It was not entirely clear which state Pakistan resided in last night but, with England at 309 for three, they were in a right old state to be sure.

England had already explored the world of murky acronyms throughout an unsuccessful first half of the summer against Sri Lanka in which they had been FOBIO - Frequently Outwitted By Inanimate Objects.

This was partly because they had been cursed by GBC (General Body Crumble - an acronym, this, that originated in medical notes almost a century ago) and now there was general agreement that it was time for Andrew Strauss, captain for one Test only, to administer AKUTA. For the Grolis among you, that's A Kick Up The Arse.

Remarkably, this was the fifth time that an England captain had missed a Lord's Test since Duncan Fletcher took over as coach. This time, just for variety's sake, two England captains were injured, although Michael Vaughan has been in the shadows all summer and was watching from a hospitality box when Paul Collingwood marked his first Test hundred in England by raising his bat in his direction.

Alastair Cook reached the same landmark just before the close, but he prospered largely because Pakistan had a nightmarish day in the field. He was dropped three times and was also given not out when Pakistan actually caught one. He accepted such let-offs primly, not wishing to celebrate his fortune unduly, but he graciously took the extra offerings as he might allow an extra piece of fruit cake to be forced upon him.

He was coached at Bedford School by Derek Randall but is about as far away from Randall's hyperactivity as you can get. The worst miss, by the wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal, reprieved Collingwood and caused Woolmer to wobble his hands sympathetically on the balcony to convey that the ball might have swerved late in flight.

But he could not have been happy; along with the wobbling hands there was a hint of wobbling jowls. Had Geraint Jones made such a hash of it he would have been pilloried. For any young wicketkeeper this was the sort of wastage that those in the acronym trade ruefully call AFLO - Another Flipping Learning Opportunity.

Pakistan's most impassioned challenge came from Danish Kaneria. It is suggested that Mohammad Yousuf changed his name from Yousuf Youhana and converted to Islam because he was uncomfortable at being the only Christian in the side. Kaneria is the only Hindu, but this hardly moves him to reticence.

On one occasion against Collingwood yesterday he rivalled his predecessor, the arch appealer Mushtaq Ahmed, with an appeal that began as a claim for lbw, then for a fumbling caught behind, then for a stumping as he saw the bails come off. Lbw was the most convincing option but the umpire Steve Bucknor, clearly not a man for acronyms, remained unmoved.

Pakistan, though, may not be finished yet. At least one Indian businessman raves about a lecture delivered by Woolmer in which he asserted that when 63% of a team are in the Ideal Performance State the team wins. Not when the other 37% are dropping the nicks, it doesn't.