The Cricket Thread 2013

[villan from luton]

The pitch looks dead, should get a draw and move on

[PaulWinch again]

Long way to go yet, but they've started well.

[PGW]

101/0 Cook 50

[villan from luton]

Heard Irani/gough/both twats on radio earlier in week before the start saying first test will be a draw and England will win the other two

[PGW]

No time for Ronnie Irani but the way this pitch is playing they could be right about the first test....we should get the draw out of this and England tend to get better as series'  progress'.

[PGW]

118/0 Compton got his 50 now.

[JD]

After having to deal with all the smug Kiwi's over the past couple of days it would be good if we see this one out and then up the game for the other tests.

[villan from luton]

Lambstewbert, got a load of kiwi cop mates who have come over on career breaks and have been getting loads of stick but bit quieter this evening

[PGW]

139/0 Tea......i'm off to bed - night night!

Big day today

[Darlo Dave]

Tons from Captain Cook & Compton. Good stuff. Wicket doing nothing, the draw looking the most likely result. Keep them out there as long as possible tomorrow, win the toss in the next match, and make them bowl  again!

[paul_e]

it's as if the test match lurches up on them sooner than expected.  If it was a once off it'd be ok but 3 in a row of looking really poor and it's something that needs to be addressed.  We can still come away from this with a draw though, just need to be sensible.

how we played over night is what I meant by sensible.  Nothing risky, played everything on merit and kept the scoreboard ticking over.  We should try to bat the day out now, there's no chance we can get a big enough total to risk letting them have 15-20 overs at the end so kept the wickets and play sensibly and show them that we're capable of posting a huge total on this tour.

[PaulWinch again]

That's very well played, just got to finish the job now.

[paul_e]

Has Finn's new run up had a bigger effect than we'd have expected or is it just a really flat pitch?  Can't get it on TV here and finding a stream would be a bad idea for my chances of getting any sleep.

[cdbearsfan]

This story seems to have passed me by. Allegations that Pakistan might have chucked the last World Cup Semi-Final, against India.

Apologies it's an old article but first I'd heard of it and not sure it was that widely publicised so I thought I'd share it.

Also, apologies that it's from the Heil.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-2230682/Cricket-match-fixing-Was-World-Cup-semi-final-fixed.html

[PaulWinch again]

Did well to draw there and Finn batted beautifully.