The International Cricket Thread

[LeeB]

Knocking a few quick runs and losing Brook might help, this situation is tailor made for Bairstow to come in and smash a two run a ball 70 or so

[Risso]

Knocking a few quick runs and losing Brook might help, this situation is tailor made for Bairstow to come in and smash a two run a ball 70 or so

I was surprised at the safety first approach of the last hour last night. As Paul says, we need to take 10 wickets, so I'd have thought a full onslaught last night would have been the thing to do, even at the expense of a few wickets. They absolutely have to go for it this morning, a day like today is made for Bazball.

[Flamingo Lane]

The weather forecast on the BBC is pretty much saying that not a ball will be bowled after today!

[manic-road]

Knocking a few quick runs and losing Brook might help, this situation is tailor made for Bairstow to come in and smash a two run a ball 70 or so

Not sure about wanting to lose Brook quickly, he is a brutal hitter.

[Gareth]

What we thinking try and get 180 ahead by about 12.30 and get them in for 20 minutes before lunch?

[paul_e]

What we thinking try and get 180 ahead by about 12.30 and get them in for 20 minutes before lunch?

Who knows, I think I'd go for another half hour and see where things are. Having batted this morning though I suspect we'll want a lead of 150 or more. I'd be keeping an eye out for any balls misbehaving though, late on yesterday there was a lot of variation in the bounce, if that is still there and we're under clouds, Woakes could be destructive.

[Gareth]

What we thinking try and get 180 ahead by about 12.30 and get them in for 20 minutes before lunch?

Who knows, I think I'd go for another half hour and see where things are. Having batted this morning though I suspect we'll want a lead of 150 or more. I'd be keeping an eye out for any balls misbehaving though, late on yesterday there was a lot of variation in the bounce, if that is still there and we're under clouds, Woakes could be destructive.

Agree Paul, those low bouncing balls were eyes light up time for Woakes and Jimmy.  Listening to Crawley last night seemed to suggest they only want to bat once…but can’t go on too long

In next test news Tongue has blitzed through Leicester 5-29 so hopefully be firing if we need him.

[paul_e]

My worry about today was always that Australia would settle for a draw and just start leaking time out of the game, that's clearly already started.

[olaftab]

A declaration by lunch is important as I would rather have England needing to bat to get say 100 runs on Sunday than waiting for 3 Australian wickets in the last session. There will be no play tomorrow but Sunday could be Ok in patches.

[paul_e]

A declaration by lunch is important as I would rather have England needing to bat to get say 100 runs on Sunday than waiting for 3 Australian wickets in the last session. There will be no play tomorrow but Sunday could be Ok in patches.

Sunday looks like thundery showers so could be ok or could be a wet outfield and no play, it's a risk but, as you say, it's one I'd prefer to face needing to smash 50-100 runs quickly than needing to take a handful of wickets. I don't think I'd wait as late as lunch, I'd be looking at declaring with at last 5-6 overs to go at them before the break. That does need us to really start pushing the run rate now though, I'm not sure losing wickets matters to us any more in this innings. Them not taking the new ball is very telling, they're clearly scared of us smashing it around a bit.

[Monty]

Extremely useful 51 from the Skip. He's annoyed with himself but if the whole team got that we'd get 561 all out, so you know, it's a definite contribution.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep very good. Right Jonny B let’s see some fast runs.

[paul_e]

Extremely useful 51 from the Skip. He's annoyed with himself but if the whole team got that we'd get 561 all out, so you know, it's a definite contribution.

Useful as much because he batted through a nasty spell yesterday where we'd just lost 2 well set batsmen to balls that just didn't bounce. A little 'resettling' was probably the right call at that point if we didn't want to go nuclear and declare and him and Brook saw us through it fantastically.

I really want to see them take the new ball now though, it'll give us a great idea of how likely we are to get some early wickets.

[Risso]

This ia all surprisingly pedestrian.

[paul_e]

Game is in a bit of a lull right now. Listening to the Australians on comms trying to act like this is a good morning for them is pretty funny.