The International Cricket Thread 2018

[PaulWinch again]

Bumrah has finished this now.

[paul_e]

Fair play to Stokes and Buttler here. We’ll lose, but at least they’ve resisted a bit.

Buttler is so unlucky there, 2 umpire's calls on the review.  Fair play to him though, that's a big innings.

Not sure why Bairstow went out though, looked very nervous playing at that with his hand.

I hope we can rally a bit and get through to tomorrow.  If we can get the chase up over 300 it will help the mentality going into the 4th test, if we can get through the day that would be huge.

Bairstow didn't look nervous, he was out to a belting delivery.

It was but, for me, the shot he played was very timid by his standards.

[manic-road]

Fair play to Stokes and Buttler here. We’ll lose, but at least they’ve resisted a bit.

Buttler is so unlucky there, 2 umpire's calls on the review.  Fair play to him though, that's a big innings.

Not sure why Bairstow went out though, looked very nervous playing at that with his hand.

I hope we can rally a bit and get through to tomorrow.  If we can get the chase up over 300 it will help the mentality going into the 4th test, if we can get through the day that would be huge.

Bairstow didn't look nervous, he was out to a belting delivery.

It was but, for me, the shot he played was very timid by his standards.

Playing a straight bat at a ball coming in at nearly 90mph isn't a timid shot it was the right shot to play but pace and swing beat him as it would do to an awful lot of batsmen.

[PaulWinch again]

I do think it’s time to draw a line under Jennings, his technique looks all wrong. Cook similarly just finds ways of getting out these days. Root needs to look at what Stokes and Buttler did today, he’s plenty good enough and he should be able to grind out runs more. It’s a harsh criticism, but he gets nowhere near enough match winning scores for his talent.

[PaulWinch again]

Some spirit and fight from some of the players to take it to the fifth day.

[Villan For Life]

Some fight indeed which was good to see but our batting yet again has been poor.

I really don’t know how this series will end. The first test could have gone either way, in the next two - barring a miracle - each side has been completely outplayed in a single test. I long for the days of drawn tests, even the games affected by the weather end in a result.

[tomd2103]

I do think it’s time to draw a line under Jennings, his technique looks all wrong. Cook similarly just finds ways of getting out these days. Root needs to look at what Stokes and Buttler did today, he’s plenty good enough and he should be able to grind out runs more. It’s a harsh criticism, but he gets nowhere near enough match winning scores for his talent.

It's funny, but I just don't think Root is comfortable batting at three.  In the same way that Ian Bell looked at his best batting five, I think Root would be better going back down to four where he seems more at home.  I think we need to get our best players settled in their proper positions first and then look from there.  Bairstow is probably going to be out now, but I still think our strongest 4-11 at home is Root, Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler, Ali, Woakes, Broad, Anderson.  Yes, Ali and Woakes are low at 8 and 9, but that lower order with Bairstow at seven was producing match winning runs not so long ago. 

Forget Sri Lanka and the West Indies, we are building towards the Aussies at home next year and getting that urn back.  The top three needs some serious work, but the remainder of that team is the team that we should be looking at for next summer.

[Steve67]

Well, at least this one goes into a fifth day, very unusual for test matches to do that these days. Well played India, makes the series more exciting.  The weather tomorrow is dodgy but not dodgy enough to save England.

The batting line up needs reviewing for England. We have no natural number 3.  The openers need looking at as well.

[Chris Jameson]

Adults can gain entry from as little as £10.00 tomorrow and children £5.00. It’s almost as if they want to put people off anything other than the smash it out of the ground format.

[PaulWinch again]

That is appalling.

[TheTimVilla]

This is pretty damning for Cook

http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/24418388/alastair-cook-rarer-peaks-problem-england

[TheTimVilla]

Adults can gain entry from as little as £10.00 tomorrow and children £5.00. It’s almost as if they want to put people off anything other than the smash it out of the ground format.

Is there a refund if there is less than, say, 5 overs played? This could be over in one ball!

[UK Redsox]

Adults can gain entry from as little as £10.00 tomorrow and children £5.00. It’s almost as if they want to put people off anything other than the smash it out of the ground format.

Is there a refund if there is less than, say, 5 overs played? This could be over in one ball!

I read last night that there's no refund as long as one ball is bowled

[TheTimVilla]

Adults can gain entry from as little as £10.00 tomorrow and children £5.00. It’s almost as if they want to put people off anything other than the smash it out of the ground format.

Is there a refund if there is less than, say, 5 overs played? This could be over in one ball!

I read last night that there's no refund as long as one ball is bowled

So that must have changed then. I'm sure it used to be the case that a refund was given in such cases. It had better be a bloody good ball!

[Villan For Life]

I know at Edgbaston they don’t sell day 5 tickets before the game starts. It seems that Nottinghamshire have sold 2,000 day 5 tickets at £10 a throw before the test started so that’s why they’re not allowing anyone in for free today.

I can see why they have done it; with the test starting on a Saturday they will have lost a small fortune in missed corporate hospitality sales from the traditional test/corporate days of Thursday and Friday.