Cricket fred

[Galfon]

In the lead now with 7 wkts. left - crucial partnership is this;
anything could happen.

[Which Tyler]

There's a deflection there, but quite honestly, it's too close, stick with on-field decision

[Galfon]

Stick or Twist..
Stokes walks. big wicket.

[Galfon]

ffs..
7 doon the noo. It could be a Rash win..
Reminds me of pen. takers dinking it straight down the middle knowing the keeper will leap one way or t'other..
Certainly an extra flavour to the Test version.

[Galfon]

49 to win.
Nearly home, get the hose ready.

[fivepointer]

England have been dire but this isnt good test match cricket.

[Digby]

I don't have too much of a problem with this pitch. The number of batters deceived by the ball that didn't spin isn't entirely on the pitch, it's also a lot of not very good batting. The pitch did skew in favour of the spin bowlers, but not so much it was a 2 day match.

If we got match after match of this all around the world that'd be a different thing, especially now you can't hide the bat behind the pad with DRS giving spinners many more lbw victims

[Stom]

TBH, while I agree the players should be more mentally capable to play on this, for a test match to last less than 2 days is embarrassing.

The pitch was hooping all over the place, and the spinners didn't even know which ball would spin and which would go straight on. No wonder the batsmen couldn't pick them. I can kinda understand going back to give yourself time, but surely England needed to push forward to take the spin out of the game. Yes, it runs the risk of you getting in trouble from a full, fast straight one, but still...

The pitches haven't been very good, imo.

[Digby]

Tough to push forwards against the variety in angles India give. I think there's much more scope to play straighter mind and if you get a snorter and it takes an edge and it's caught so be it. It's the numbers getting done by the straight ball, probably because they've seen so much spin, which makes me think there's scope for a number of batters to have done better. Though some very good players on both sides would observe it was beyond them in this match, so how good would you need to be to stay calm if the best around are struggling, I'm sure we'd hear from former players who could do it, but they didn't have the DRS lbw to contend with

Of course my solution to not getting out doesn't solve the problem of scoring runs, other than you might stick around to get a few more hittable balls.

[Galfon]

Longer tail it is, just 1 quickie ( & Stokes ).
Day 1 and mostly spin at work and getting wickets...
plus ca change, but Lawrence doing his best to avoid early capitulation. 180 - 7 seems like nose-bleed territory but probs. 100 short; the pitch may deteriorate pretty quick but we'll have to see.

[fivepointer]

Horrible shot from Lawrence and now Bess misses another straight ball.......

[Banquo]

Pants again. Easy strategy for India, knock Leach out of the attack and we are toast I'd think. They aren't even trying to score off Jimmy. Bess starts with a no ball and a drag down.....oops

[Digby]

Mental scars and or mental fatigue. getting out to so many straight deliveries in the last game was bad enough, this isn't spinning quite the same way and still the straight ball befuddles them as a group.

If they have a gameplan as to how to bat when they go out there they're abandoning it on the walk to the middle. Which is partly experience, and partly they're just not very good, how much there's caveat of given the conditions isn't clear

[Galfon]

Some light relief; how to bring a spinner who just bagged a hat-trick back down to earth.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... -twenty-20

(#5 was a funny hybrid shot, & the bowler's round the wicket flat-arm attempt to nullify things on #6 was treated fairly..)

[Digby]

I nearly commented on that. I once took 3 wickets in an over and got smashed in the over 3 overs bowled in a 6 a-side game, this lad has gone to even greater extremes. I bet he remembers the 6s more

[Banquo]

decent fightback from the (2) seamers. Alas the spinners showing little.

[Galfon]

Really need India to fold now - much better from Eng. today.

[fivepointer]

Good fighting cricket from us so far today. Bowlers have brought us back into the game. Things very finely poised at tea.

[Galfon]

Pants.

[Banquo]

screwed the pooch in this session

[Digby]

amusing though we dropped a bowler to be in this position. and I get they like Bess, but it is weird he's learning to bowl length at this level, still

[Banquo]

amusing though we dropped a bowler to be in this position. and I get they like Bess, but it is weird he's learning to bowl length at this level, still

yes, we appear to have got our selections utterly a about f between tests 3 and 4.

[Digby]

if you're going to feck it up it's at least funnier to do it with such aplomb. though I doubt Jimmy sees the funny side at pissing the chance of a series win away in India up the wall

[Galfon]

Some poor choices so far, with expected consequences...3 doon & last chance saloon (Root/Stokes) fast tracked.
An innings defeat would top things off not-nicely..
** u/d: Stokes gone too now - send for the spin-doctor quick.

[Big D]

Apparently India over the last few years is harder to tour than the WIndies was at their peak. Bairstow now has 6 ducks from his last 9 innings v India . Both according to the Andy Zaltzman on the BBC.

We know England are shite against spin, I don't think there will be many changes for the summer.