Roooot not captaincy material, certainly not after Oz. Chronic mental weakness about the set up. Send for a Brearley!
India have bowled superbly in difficult batting conditions. The opportunity was missed in the first innings after being 216-3 and batting relatively comfortably. Oh well.
Sam Curran given us a chance to win the Test v India with a great half century - hopefully Jimmy or Broad can produce one of their magic spells. Mind you it would paper over some rather large cracks!
I don't think we are much good, actually. Cook is surely nearing the knacker's yard. Root would be class if he wasn't captain. Bairstow is a decent biffer on his day but is prone to too many stupid errors. Broad blows hot and cold. Anderson would be the only one who would warrant a definite place in a World XI, IMO. And even he isn't as good as he was three years ago.
Yes in true English tradition we will keep ourselves about 3-4 wickets away from being truly in the game and will lose by 5 wickets.
Get Kohli and job done. Easier said than done of course , but in a decent chance here . Indians struggle against English seam almost as much as we struggle against spin on subcontinent.
No. Is there a like for like replacement? No one really springs to mind. Push Curran up a place and bring in another batsman?
2nd test starts on Thursday. Young Ollie Pope is in and Stokes will have to be replaced of course - and maybe not just for this test.
Would like to see Porter given a chance but i expect it will be Pope for Malan and Woakes (or maybe Ali?) for Stokes.
Well this is irritating. The window over (for buys) so fully expected to just keep track of the cricket all day today. I can see I'm going to have to do some bloody work....
You've left it too late, surely. 4:15 on a Friday afternoon. Knock off early! Find us some juicy loan targets on t'internet.
Cashed out all my England bets last night thinking most of today would be rained off. Serves me right!
Test cricket is failing. So few competitive matches with home team winning so often. Theresa May, MCC member, stop your gurning & do something!
Ben Stokes found not guilty - as were the other 2 defendants. Should he walk back into the test team or have to earn his place back given the performances of Woakes at Lord's ?
I don't think they should change the squad for TB, and I'd be very surprised - barring injury - if they did. It's still possible that he might get some internal sanction from the ECB.
Well they have named Stokes in the squad and yes he and Alex Hales will face some sort of punishment. Missing the Ashes was probably quite a hard one though.
