683/6.
That means currently England have scored 2,191 runs for the loss of 40 wickets in the series. India has scored 1,217 for 50. A whole innings more and almost 1,000 runs less.
Cook throws away his wicket! England are still nearly 300 runs short of 1000!
- Cook should hang himself.
King pair for Sehwag. Not what they were looking for from him, methinks.
Sehwag came into this match having played no cricket for 3 months, and has 2 balls of practise in this one. King pair. As an opener, his approach is the exact opposite of Cook. 12 overs left tonight, there is the potential for carnage here if our bowlers get it right. Can’t be fun to bat after spending two days in the field.
well bugger! really hoped Cook was going to get there but never mind.
710-6 is faintly ridiculous. And now Jimmy has taken Sehwag for a golden duck…a king pair!
5 for 1, six full sessions to bat, 481 runs behind, can I use the word “marmalise?” I think the situation calls for it.
Shame, Cook has to settle for just the sixth-highest English score, and the team for the third-highest. Meanwhile Sehwag manages to be the only Test triple centurion (more than once, too) to have recorded a king pair. (Adam Gilchrist is perhaps the second-best batsman on the list, but he never made a 300)
89/6, this won’t last long. Anderson removed Gambhir and Dravid before they scored a run this morning. Sadly, Tendulkar has just been run-out, when the ball deflected off Swann’s fingers and onto the stumps as he was backing up.
He’s been a great player, and no-one seems to have a bad thing to say about him on a personal level. Kumar is another one who has aquitted himself well on this tour.
England won by an innings and god knows what. As Cricinfo commentary points out; far cry from 1999; when England was the worlds bottom team.
So I guess hell has officially frozen over.
Congratulations England. Splendid job, absolutely from the top shelf.
And that’s coming from a loyal Aussie.
Were they the world’s bottom ranked Test nation? Really? Or is that mostly subjective opinion? Is there a way of statisiticaly quantifying what the rankings are, at any given point in time?
I know the Australian First XI won 15+ Tests in a row during two separate stanzas at that time - first under Steve Waugh and then next, under Ricky Ponting. So that would indicate probable Numero Uno for that team at that time.
I’d like to know if there’s a quantifiable system in place however.
Here are the official ICC rankings (slightly out of date, still showing India top), which have been running for about 20 years now. We were bottom of them in 1999 after losing at home to New Zealand. Bangladesh hadn’t yet entered test cricket, and Zimbabwe put together a few wins to edge in front of us. We then took a really green team to South Africa the next winter, and hit our lowest ebb when we were reduced to 2/4 on the first day of the first test. Nasser Hussein and Duncan Fletcher rebuilt the team from that point, helped by the new central contract system. We won a string of test series between 2003 and 2005, culminating in the famous 2005 ashes series.
Well it’s snowing in Invercargill (and the rest of the South Island)
England 75/0, And rain. The covers are out.
591/6 declared. Sehwag has survived his first ball of the series, triple century anyone? I’m predicting a draw for this one.
Edit - Yay, I jinxed him! I thought that only worked for your own team.
Even before the wicket that’s just fallen, I was going to question this. If you predict a draw then you must think India are going to play a lot better than previously (or that the weather’s going to be rubbish). Even if they improve the chances are they will have to follow on and keep batting until near the end of the 5th day. We’re only on the third day.
Didn’t see your edit there before I posted.
My thinking was that the commentators were saying there was very little in the pitch for the bowlers, and Swann hasn’t really been effective in this series. Two wickets in the first four overs does change things somewhat.
I’m going to give my prognostications in impenetrable blank verse in the future, to maintain my credibility.
Innings win - sums the series up pretty much.
I just wish that Sachin had gotten his ton.