Cricket fred

[Digby]

Burns out of the next game to watch his 2nd child come into the world, Bairstow will take the gloves.

Both Woakes and Wood are back with the squad, Curran and maybe Ali will be waiting for a tap on the shoulder and the request for a little chat

[Puja]

Burns out of the next game to watch his 2nd child come into the world, Bairstow will take the gloves.

Both Woakes and Wood are back with the squad, Curran and maybe Ali will be waiting for a tap on the shoulder and the request for a little chat

Do you mean Buttler out or is it both Burns and Buttler?

Puja

[Digby]

Burns out of the next game to watch his 2nd child come into the world, Bairstow will take the gloves.

Both Woakes and Wood are back with the squad, Curran and maybe Ali will be waiting for a tap on the shoulder and the request for a little chat

Do you mean Buttler out or is it both Burns and Buttler?

Puja

Hard to know what I mean reading that, that's basically putting in a bid to be the new Rowan it's so inept.

Buttler is out with a sprog due, that I know of (and clearly it's very little) there's no news regarding Burns.

[Digby]

No surprise Curran was out, no surprise Woakes and Pope have come in. Perhaps the only surprise is Ali going from being out of the squad (and in theory behind spinners in the squad) to now being vice captain, but he's very popular in the group, and he's been impressing as a captain in first class cricket

Not the sort of day that's going to motivate India to get stuck in when it comes to test cricket. Only Kohli has had any fun out there so far.

[Digby]

England batting 2nd on day 1 again, and Umesh is already running onto the pitch in his follow through in response, his batters should want a word if they weren't being mute in shame

[Digby]

Euurgh, no need to play at that having just lost an opener. possibly the leave earlier in the over convinced him he wanted to play more positively at the ball.

6-2 now. At this rate India will be batting again today

[Big D]

Root and Malan both got good balls.

If Bairstow is really going to be a test player then this is an innings he needs to dig out 50+. All well and good when things are going well and Root is at the other end scoring but this is where he needs to perform.

[Galfon]

key partnership is this (Pope & JB), though you'd like to think Moeen & Woakes could rustle up 40 or 50 between them..

[Puja]

Moeen just about gets away with his 35, even though he got out with a stupid shot, because he's a decent enough spinner and does a very good job as a counter-attacking number 7 (here for a good time, not a long time) that you're willing to put him in the same category as Woakes - useful if he gets a score, but a bonus rather than an expectation.

Bairstow on the other hand is supposed to be a genuine part of the middle order. He's not a good enough wicket keeper for that to be his USP and you can't pitch yourself as a genuine middle-order batsman and fall on 37 in that situation.

Pope played well, but it's his home ground and he's always favoured there, so I don't know whether there's anything we can really read into that. We have real problems in our middle order.

Puja

[Digby]

Moeen is not a decent enough spinner. he can get shape on the ball, and he can get some sideways movement, but his control of length remains poor. granted it's hard, but he's being judged as a test spinner, and 3-4 decent balls an over does not a decent spinner make

broadly though another very good day for England

[Puja]

Moeen is not a decent enough spinner. he can get shape on the ball, and he can get some sideways movement, but his control of length remains poor. granted it's hard, but he's being judged as a test spinner, and 3-4 decent balls an over does not a decent spinner make

broadly though another very good day for England

Fair in the global sense, but in terms of the England team, we're not flush with choices. 3-4 decent balls an over is better than most of our spin options

Woakes has made it a very good day indeed. We did not deserve to get a 99 run lead, but he dragged it out of the mire. Such a niche player - absolutely vital to us in home tests, yet nothing more than an average trundler the minute you take him out of the country.

Puja

[Digby]

I think they got it wrong with Bess bringing him in so early. He'd have been much better bowling many thousands of extra 1st class deliveries.once in the test squad that's really limited how many balls he would actually bowl. Fair we don't have many great spin options, especially with Rashid being out of the picture.

And agreed on Woakes, indeed it's the caveat to much of the side going well, how would they do on faster bouncier wickets? Robinson looks like he should work on a variety of surfaces

[Puja]

I think they got it wrong with Bess bringing him in so early. He'd have been much better bowling many thousands of extra 1st class deliveries.once in the test squad that's really limited how many balls he would actually bowl. Fair we don't have many great spin options, especially with Rashid being out of the picture.

And agreed on Woakes, indeed it's the caveat to much of the side going well, how would they do on faster bouncier wickets? Robinson looks like he should work on a variety of surfaces

Cautiously optimistic about Robinson - he's not especially fast or tall or swingy, but he is consistent and patient, a combination of virtues which Glenn McGrath showed can work very well.

Puja

[fivepointer]

That was an absorbing days play. Woakes proving his worth as an all round cricketer and Pope showing some very welcome form.
Is 193 wickets not evidence of Moeen being a decent enough spinner?

[Digby]

Not for me. A lot of those are batsman getting carried away with how bad he is, and he's not so bad they should be taking such liberties. A decent number are very good wicket taking deliveries, but he doesn't control games, not in 1st or 2nd innings, he does struggle with length being a converted batsman more than a bowler, and he does shovel down just too many bad balls, for all he does now get some nice shape on his deliveries it still feels like he's a batsman who can chuck a few down, there's no sense he'll clean up on day 5 on a turning wicket, nor any sense he can lock up an end to allow the quicks to rotate if it's not doing anything for him. Ali probably has a very similar strike rate to Leach, and he's more expensive in those deliveries, so being fair to him Leach is the better spinner, but Ali is deemed to offer much more when looking at his batting and fielding. Rashid is likely a better spinner than Ali and Leach, but there are reasons Ali is picked ahead of both, and what Bess is now I don't know

[Digby]

I think they got it wrong with Bess bringing him in so early. He'd have been much better bowling many thousands of extra 1st class deliveries.once in the test squad that's really limited how many balls he would actually bowl. Fair we don't have many great spin options, especially with Rashid being out of the picture.

And agreed on Woakes, indeed it's the caveat to much of the side going well, how would they do on faster bouncier wickets? Robinson looks like he should work on a variety of surfaces

Cautiously optimistic about Robinson - he's not especially fast or tall or swingy, but he is consistent and patient, a combination of virtues which Glenn McGrath showed can work very well.

Puja

He's impressed in camp. It seems when he first turned up with England he didn't have the wobble seam delivery in his arsenal, and he's already progressed to bowling it in tests, and that's very quick going from nets to being able to produce in a game, and produce intended results. This will strongly endear him to management

I'm not sure if he's got quite enough if the ball is doing nothing in the air or off the pitch. But he is one to look at and think possibly he could still deliver when that happens, partly because of his height, maybe that's not especially tall but he'd be similar to Josh Hazlewood, and that seems pretty tall to me

[Puja]

I think they got it wrong with Bess bringing him in so early. He'd have been much better bowling many thousands of extra 1st class deliveries.once in the test squad that's really limited how many balls he would actually bowl. Fair we don't have many great spin options, especially with Rashid being out of the picture.

And agreed on Woakes, indeed it's the caveat to much of the side going well, how would they do on faster bouncier wickets? Robinson looks like he should work on a variety of surfaces

Cautiously optimistic about Robinson - he's not especially fast or tall or swingy, but he is consistent and patient, a combination of virtues which Glenn McGrath showed can work very well.

Puja

He's impressed in camp. It seems when he first turned up with England he didn't have the wobble seam delivery in his arsenal, and he's already progressed to bowling it in tests, and that's very quick going from nets to being able to produce in a game, and produce intended results. This will strongly endear him to management

I'm not sure if he's got quite enough if the ball is doing nothing in the air or off the pitch. But he is one to look at and think possibly he could still deliver when that happens, partly because of his height, maybe that's not especially tall but he'd be similar to Josh Hazlewood, and that seems pretty tall to me

Huh. A google tells me he's 6ft5. I did not realise he was that tall!

It sounds weird, but he doesn't bowl like a tall bowler. Like a big man in rugby growing up getting used to boshing people, taller bowlers can rarely resist the temptation to drop short and give the batsman a little chin music (or at the very least drag their deliveries steadily shorter and shorter), and it's something I've not seen from Robinson so far. That makes me value him even more.

I assume he has the capability to bowl short if the pitch demands? That'd be a useful string to have for going to Australia.

Puja

[Digby]

The shorter the ball the easier it is bowling on the physical front, so they can bowl short when tired, and in fairness when the batter has managed to not get out to pitched up stuff and you intentionally change. Not sure if Robinson can bowl short stuff, he probably needs to add a few mph else he'd have to be really short and then what's the point?

We clearly would like someone who can stick it in short, but they're not doing badly for a side missing Broad, Archer, Wood and Stokes. A few things could have worked out better for us today, but mainly India have played well

[Digby]

What a weird wicket that was for Sharma getting out. Still looks like it'll be India's game with our batters not having much renown for quality, and it's probably the series gone with OT predicted to be something of a washout. But we're in with a chance again

[Galfon]

Need to wrap innings up before lead above 250 ideally - there is a chance of this.
Moeen delivers enough wicket balls but it's a pity his loose/poor quotas means he rarely ties decent batsmen down.

** u/d India remain unwrapped, no further loss, lead 275+

[fivepointer]

You shouldnt be run out in test cricket unless you are going hell for leather for quick runs. Its just donating a wicket.

[Digby]

There probably was a run there, Malan just wasn't backing up. Depends a bit too on what the chat was between the players, were they talking about let's reach lunch, or were they saying we've not scored much let's be looking for a single or a two.

It probably was a little tight given all, but Malan isn't an innocent party in that run out

[Galfon]

Collapso-central.- some players can be relied upon to be unreliable it seems.

[Digby]

Lack of penetration in the bowling, dropped catches, spinner couldn't hold an end down, missed run outs and then collapsing when batting. We've really ticked all the boxes. One suspects Australia aren't in panic mode

[Digby]

I wonder how often in recent times both openers have posted 50s and England have still made a super low score?