The International Cricket Thread

[PaulWinch again]

And this was one of the reasons they should have been rotating Broad and Anderson.

[tomd2103]

Looks like Broad is out of the Second Test and there's doubts over Jimmy as well

Saqib Mahmood called up

Will be good to see Mahmood get a chance.  Will be an interesting selection if we feel we need four seamers and a spinner. 

[PaulWinch again]

Hopefully Mo helps balance the side a bit. Sibley must be needing a score. Crawley needed the break, I still think he’s more likely to have a long-term future than Sibley. Hope Hameed goes well.

[paul_e]

So far the bowling has mostly been decent and giving them little to score from without creating huge amounts of threat. Sam Curran however has been far too full and drifted onto the pads too often giving them easy opportunities to turn a difficult first session into a decent score.

[PaulWinch again]

England need that break. Need to think about their options a bit.

[paul_e]

This spell is slightly better from Curran but he's still giving them too many chances to score cheap runs. I think we're looking at chasing a 450-500 here, we just look clueless as to how to take wickets. I'm expecting Root to bowl today based on what I've seen so far.

[PaulWinch again]

It’s looking grim here.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

It’s looking grim here.

Agreed. That first session featured some abysmal bowling - fractionally short and didn’t amend their lengths until the ball stopped moving about.

[PaulWinch again]

Didn’t really seem to be a bowling plan as such.

[Steve67]

Another poor day for England.  We look a shadow of a side at the moment.  We are going to need to bat well to save this test.

[paul_e]

It’s looking grim here.

Agreed. That first session featured some abysmal bowling - fractionally short and didn’t amend their lengths until the ball stopped moving about.

Anderson and Robinson were slighty short but they kept things tight, Curran came on and, to quote Vaughan (who is a twat but was right on this), bowled like a schoolboy. His first spell was some of the worst test bowling I've seen for England for years.

Didn’t really seem to be a bowling plan as such.

I think there was, the bowlers just didn't deliver it and seemed to spend the first hour blaming the ball for their failings because they weren't getting as much swing as they expected.

[Villan For Life]

I think Root decided to put them in India in because he has no confidence in the batting line up. At least if you bowl first you have a chance of bowling them out cheaply whereas if you bat first and register yet another sub-200 total then your chances of winning the test have disappeared after day one.

The bowling unit is beyond criticism at the moment but we can’t afford another poor day with the ball. Or is it a subconscious thing of - and the same applies to the batsmen with Root - we will be ok because we have Jimmy.

[paul_e]

I don't think it was that, or at least not exactly. I suspect they saw the weather reports and decided that yesterday morning would be good bowling conditions which could sneak us some cheap wickets. As I say the ball didn't swing as much as anyone expected and our bowlers didn't seem to have any other plan once the early swing wasn't there, it felt like they decided to just wear things down until they could get the ball reversing.

[PaulWinch again]

Good morning. Need to be wary of forgetting to try and get Jadeja out.

[dave shelley]

England fielding really is poor.  Four run-out chances missed.