The Cricket Thread

[Phill Barrs]

Nice pitch for England but lets face it they were just lazy in the first test and bricked it against the spinner. England should easily beat Pakistan especially in English conditions. Root has proved again he can bat anywhere.

 

[LSUY]

Tomorrow's Telegraph has a piece on the ECB's plans for a new T20 competition: it'll be city-based teams with one live match per week to be shown on terrestrial TV, players auctioned to the teams and include playing matches at the Olympic Stadium and Wembley.

Have mixed feelings about these reforms. I like the idea of matches on terrestrial TV and playing matches at bigger stadiums as lower ticket prices should attract more people but hate the idea of city-based teams. I'm a Middlesex fan so I don't want to join with Surrey and I doubt many people in Sheffield, Bradford, etc. will want to support a Leeds team.

 

[gloriousbillynich]

I have tickets for the 4th day of this test. Bit worried that the game won't make the 4th day!

 

[dondo]

Might be better for England to get bowled out soon as we are never going to declare with enough time to take 10 wickets. England currently 174 ahead with 4 sessions left

 

[Yid-ol]

Might be better for England to get bowled out soon as we are never going to declare with enough time to take 10 wickets. England currently 174 ahead with 4 sessions left

Anything less than 280 is an easy target to chase so can't see them declaring soon

 

[dondo]

Anything less than 280 is an easy target to chase so can't see them declaring soon

Anything above 250 would be very hard to chase down, the history of the game shows this.
If we were 250 up with a full 90 over to bowl them out I would put my house on us not losing. Even if we don't bowl them out you can always bowl outside off stump or have the spinner bowl in the rough in the leg stump to slow down the scoring

 

[gloriousbillynich]

Having a cracking time at Edgbaston. Few too many beers maybe but worth it to join in with the barmy army, who are nuts btw

 

[dondo]

Having a cracking time at Edgbaston. Few too many beers maybe but worth it to join in with the barmy army, who are nuts btw

Which one are you? The Mexican? Boris? Chicken? Or fox?

 

[Rocksuperstar]

This has turned into a very exciting test, best of the series so far by some stretch, and it's nice that it's not down to cock ups but rather down to some exceptional play, tactics and effort by both sides. The Pakistani attack has been relentlessly supressing, bowling across Root all but shut him down for a while, but Root (being the pro he is) & Vince didn't panic, didn't flap at pointless shots - it was a tactical stand off and i loved it.

We've got the best opening three i think i can remember since Trescothick/Strauss/Vaughan of ten years ago, possibly even better - As captain, Cook is certainly more composed and has himself improved by strides these last six months or so.

Pakistani's bowlers have been mean as hell and the rotation has been perfect for the conditions. Other than the obvious missed chance for them this morning, both teams have looked much sharper fielding too so i'm hoping Cook drags them all out to field for half an hour, maybe stick another 25 up but don't try too hard to score, just frustrate the hell out of them, then stick them in and keep the over rate as high as possible to tempt them into taking on a few shots here and there.

Tomorrow will be fun.

 

[gloriousbillynich]

Which one are you? The Mexican? Boris? Chicken? Or fox?

I was a little bit more understated !!

 

[dondo]

I was a little bit more understated !!

Good stuff glad you enjoyed it.
Going to a test match has been on my to do list for a long time but I never get round to going

 

[mpickard2087]

Think Cook would be right to bat on for a bit tomorrow and not give them a sniff of chasing it down. The pitch is still a belter to bat on, every wicket today was batsman error.

 

[gloriousbillynich]

Agreed. Give the ball a whacking first up then go ultra attacking with the field

 

[Rocksuperstar]

I think Pakistan know they've thrown this away today, the best they can hope for out of this is a draw, realistically, so it wouldn't surprise me if they just dug in and played for the draw. We need to give them enough time to make the total juuust tempting enough that they will try and score runs.

 

[dondo]

I think Pakistan know they've thrown this away today, the best they can hope for out of this is a draw, realistically, so it wouldn't surprise me if they just dug in and played for the draw. We need to give them enough time to make the total juuust tempting enough that they will try and score runs.

I would declare over night as its our best chance of winning the match.
Pakistan batted well in the 1st innings because they left the ball well and grinded out the runs, they will not be able to do that chasing 310 at a run rate of over 3 and will have to come out and play their shots and give us a chance.
That won't happen though and will probably bat for the 1st hour and have Pakistan 8/9 down and run out of time

 

[UpTownSpur]

Cook should definitely declare overnight and go for it. If he plays on we probably won't get the 2nd new ball to clean up their tail with.

 

[longtimespur]

Cook should definitely declare overnight and go for it. If he plays on we probably won't get the 2nd new ball to clean up their tail with.

Good thinking with the second new ball. We can only get 10 overs with it though can't we?
90 overs in the day and 80 overs per ball?
So realistically we need to declare overnight but I think psychologically it's better to make them field for a while.
Glad it's not my decision to make.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

Yeas! Misbah gone for 10, that's the one we needed. Keep up the pressure, they'll almost certainly dig in for the draw now, need to go full attack.

 

[mark87]

Sodding tailenders.

 

[dondo]

Sodding tailenders.

Hope them 10 or so overs we wasted declaring late won't come back to bite us in the bum.
Pakistan were never going to get close to 270+ imo