England lose another test match.

[ukdobby 223]

Set em 500 declare 30mins after tea,lets hope we can ball them out.

[tinfoilhat 11]

Set em 500 declare 30mins after tea,lets hope we can ball them out.

 

I'd declare now and have a few overs before tea. I agree with not following on though - we've two young seamers not quite hitting their straps, one senior bowler with a dodgy knee and no spinner. We've got runs pretty quickly and cook continues to play himself into form. It's going pretty well.

[ukdobby 223]

I'd declare now and have a few overs before tea. I agree with not following on though - we've two young seamers not quite hitting their straps, one senior bowler with a dodgy knee and no spinner. We've got runs pretty quickly and cook continues to play himself into form. It's going pretty well.

 

If Cook can get runs what can the Indians do?Is Plunkett injured?the 2 new boelers woakes and Jordan took 0 for 119 in 1st innings.

[tinfoilhat 11]

If Cook can get runs what can the Indians do?Is Plunkett injured?the 2 new boelers woakes and Jordan took 0 for 119 in 1st innings.

 

Jordan bowled some tosh but woakes bowled ok, and has been miserly in the second innings. Jordan seems useful in the slips though. 90-4 currently.

[rossyrooney 12]

A win for England and the Yorkshire lads again made good contributions.

 

I hope the selectors stay away from the rest of the Yorkshire team for the rest of the season, I reckon we have the skill to win the championship this year..

[tzijlstra 11]

Give Jordan some time, I have seen the lad play live (one dayer against Sri Lanka) and he was nervous as heck, throwing some real dodgy stuff at times. Then he got into his stride and played perfect ball after perfect ball. I genuinely think he will come good, even though he is the right old age of 25 (which is young for test cricket). Don't know anything about Woakes.

 

To me the future of England is beginning to take shape. Moeen is a very useful two-way player, if they can work a bit more on his spin (haha, how can I say that after today's performance!) he is going to be part of this side for a long time. We all know what Root can do and he is so young still. Ballance and Robson look like they could be useful longer term, although Robson is a question mark for me. Buttler looks set to become the wicket keeper for a long time. Then there are Bairstow, Stokes, Woakes, Finn, Kerrigan and Taylor whilst Broad is still young enough and, to be fair, so is Cook.

[tinfoilhat 11]

Give Jordan some time, I have seen the lad play live (one dayer against Sri Lanka) and he was nervous as heck, throwing some real dodgy stuff at times. Then he got into his stride and played perfect ball after perfect ball. I genuinely think he will come good, even though he is the right old age of 25 (which is young for test cricket). Don't know anything about Woakes.

 

To me the future of England is beginning to take shape. Moeen is a very useful two-way player, if they can work a bit more on his spin (haha, how can I say that after today's performance!) he is going to be part of this side for a long time. We all know what Root can do and he is so young still. Ballance and Robson look like they could be useful longer term, although Robson is a question mark for me. Buttler looks set to become the wicket keeper for a long time. Then there are Bairstow, Stokes, Woakes, Finn, Kerrigan and Taylor whilst Broad is still young enough and, to be fair, so is Cook.

 

You can argue that much of England's success (and failure) is aligned to cooks form with the bat. He will never be a Michael Clarke sort of captain but neither was strauss. What strauss had was cook and trott scoring big hundred after big hundred. Cook hasn't done that for a while and with the exception of bell last summer, nobody put their hand up. The reason I wanted him out as captain was I felt his captaincy was affecting his batting too much (as is the norm for English captains going back years) and we need his batting more. If he can do both, and he didn't get much wrong in the field this test, keep going.

 

Moeen is still a long way from being a swann but with a knack of getting wickets without the ball turning is he the new Giles? Spinner aside we've got promise in the seam dept and new faces like ballance look the part. Reasons to be cheerful!

[tzijlstra 11]

Cook is an enigma really, anybody will agree he is struggling with the bat (one swallow doesn't make summer) but in general his captaining decisions are really hard to criticise. My wife puts it this way:

 

Strauss was a bad captain with a great team, Cook is a good captain with a poor team. This is a side in transition and I think after the won Ashes everybody sort of forgot that a lot of the stronghold was ageing. Having said that, the complete decline in the follow-up Ashes was way stronger than anybody could have anticipated.

 

I don't think there is any point in getting rid of Cook, simply because I really don't see an alternative captain who is going to be better. Broad has never captained, putting Bell in as captain is a bit odd as he is getting on a bit now (and he stated he doesn't want to do it). Who else is there? No one. So let's stick with Cook, lose a few more games to the Netherlands and give the youngsters time to cement their position.

[tinfoilhat 11]

Cook is an enigma really, anybody will agree he is struggling with the bat (one swallow doesn't make summer) but in general his captaining decisions are really hard to criticise. My wife puts it this way:

 

Strauss was a bad captain with a great team, Cook is a good captain with a poor team. This is a side in transition and I think after the won Ashes everybody sort of forgot that a lot of the stronghold was ageing. Having said that, the complete decline in the follow-up Ashes was way stronger than anybody could have anticipated.

 

I don't think there is any point in getting rid of Cook, simply because I really don't see an alternative captain who is going to be better. Broad has never captained, putting Bell in as captain is a bit odd as he is getting on a bit now (and he stated he doesn't want to do it). Who else is there? No one. So let's stick with Cook, lose a few more games to the Netherlands and give the youngsters time to cement their position.

 

He's got this test right but he's made loads of awful decisions or more likely no decisions at all and let games drift. On a good day he's about par with strauss but neither are a Clarke or a Vaughan.

[whiteowl 54]

He's got this test right but he's made loads of awful decisions or more likely no decisions at all and let games drift. On a good day he's about par with strauss but neither are a Clarke or a Vaughan.

 

I think that's a fair assessment, just not sure who would replace him given the players available and the current ECB setup

[anarchist 10]

India 20 for 4.

 

[tzijlstra 11]

Not a bad start....