The International Cricket Thread

[PaulWinch again]

I think Pope absolutely has the talent, but the technical change he made to get across to off stump doesn’t work for me. If he addresses that he can absolutely come in. I would put Hameed into open and bring in Malan at 3 as a short-term fix.

[Gareth]

As a batsman Root is completely blameless but his captaincy this morning was shoddy at best….must have been part of the decision to waste so many balls by trying to knock the batsmen’s heads off rather than actually bowl them out.

With the batting issues what they should do is look at the County Championship performances for the last 2/3 weeks and find the form players in form facing the red ball……ermmmmm…..doh!

[PaulWinch again]

It was really poor captaincy. But were it not for his batting we’d be ruined and have lost before having the chance to push for victory.

[PaulWinch again]

Farbrace is insufferable as a pundit. He will never acknowledge that sometimes players need to be dropped.

[UK Redsox]

Finding another captain from the current crop of England players looks a problem.

There's no one who stands out as 'FEC' in the way that Root and, before that, Sir Chef did when they came into the team.

I don't think that it's something you can land on Stokes when (if?) he comes back.
I'm not sure that Buttler is an option as anything more than a stand-in when needed.

Therefore, for me, Root stays as captain until after the Ashes. Hopefully by that point the team as a whole will have got their act together and the question of changing captain will be moot.

[Villafirst]

Losing Stokes and Archer from this team is massive. Even Woakes when he ever gets fit is a big upgrade on the likes of Curran. The future looks a bit bleak for Archer with his troublesome elbow injury.

[UK Redsox]

Wood out of the Third Test

[tomd2103]

Wood out of the Third Test

That's Archer, Broad, Wood, Woakes and Stone all now out injured.  Would like to see Mahmood given a go as just think that Overton is one of those who isn't really up to it.

[UK Redsox]

Rory Burns
Haseeb Hameed
Dawid Malan
Joe Root(c)
Jonny Bairstow
Jos Buttler(wk)
Moeen Ali
Sam Curran
Craig Overton
Ollie Robinson
James Anderson

[UK Redsox]

Still no R. Ashwin

Rohit Sharma
KL Rahul
Cheteshwar Pujara
Virat Kohli(c)
Ajinkya Rahane
Rishabh Pant(wk)
Ravindra Jadeja
Ishant Sharma
Mohammed Shami
Jasprit Bumrah
Mohammed Siraj

[PaulWinch again]

I would have played Saqib.

[UK Redsox]

Feck that fecking trumpet 

[UK Redsox]

Jimmmmmmmmmmmy

[KNVillan]

India 56-4 at lunch…good morning session from England

[UK Redsox]

Now 67-8 after 3-0 in 5 balls


EDIT - Make that 67-9 and 4-0 in 6 balls