I was having a spirited debate at the start of the fourth innings with a colleague who said that West Indies had every chance of chasing this down. I said they’d be lucky to survive the day.
My first success in cricket prognostication in many a year.
Yeah even as an England fan (or perhaps because of the memories), that collapse was hard to watch. Still, pretty well done by England, and at least it was more competitive than the first test.
I think someone on the BBC highlights said it was the first time over 400 had been scored in each of the first 3 innings, which I find remarkable.
And we’re so lucky to have Carlos Brathwaite as a commentator/analyst - superb voice and accent to listen to, and more importantly he’s fair, funny, and knows his stuff. But with much less ego than Vaughan (well yes, that last comment applies to almost everyone).
Third test very much like the second - Windies get into a promising position, but can’t capitalise and cede the advantage back to England. I only watched the highlights, but it looked like Alzarri Joseph in particular bowled way too short. And they’ll be kicking themselves for not reviewing that lbw shout when Joe Root was on 3, that was very costly (but understandable).
One thing I’ve noticed in this series is the camerawork doesn’t seem up to the usual standard - several times the ball has been nowhere near the frame. I wonder if some experienced operators have all left at once?
Quite the collapse from the Windies tail there. Wood takes 3 wickets in 6 balls to end the match. England need 82 to win and got 12 from the first 5 balls in the 2nd innings. It’s only 3p there, so this will very possibly be over today.
Me and my son were there on Saturday. First half hour, we thought we were going to see a W.Indies 1st innings lead, maybe a big one. But after that, they really didn’t threaten. The pace certainly wasn’t giving anyone trouble, and you could see them diminishing as the day wore on, and each new partnership kicked on.
A fun day, especially the last hour with big sixes and wickets falling for England. But can’t help but feel it’s too easy, W. I dies I think have the ability to be competitive but they need what everyone needs, match time to develop skills and mentality. And they’re not being given it, so they do worse, so they don’t get matches…
Stokes comes away with the fastest English test fifty to knock off the runs in 7.2 overs - opening because Crawley is off for a scan.
I do wonder if Ben wasn’t a little disappointed he didn’t have more to chase.
Absolutely. In the situations where Windies faltered, Australia will not. I doubt Sri Lanka will be much more of a challenge. Still, you can only beat what’s in front of you, winning is a good habit to get into, etc.
Facebook reminds me that it was 9 years ago when you could compose a tweet of:
So funny I bought the T-shirt.
There can’t be many innings in which the last wicket partnership has contributed more than 20% of the total!
Just goes to show that England’s problems taking that final wicket aren’t new…
Just for the hell of the exercise. (curtesy of Cricinfo statsguru)
In Tests, there have been 6,524 10th wicket partnerships (broken+unbroken)
Average runs has been 13.03 with 28 centuries and 1,048 zeros.
The highest 10th wicket is 198 out of 10/496 (40%) by JM Anderson & JE Root for ENG v IND 2014
The highest %contribution is 163 out of 10/280 (58%) by AC Agar & PJ Hughes for AUS v ENG 2013.
There have been 239 (3.7%) 10th wicket partnerships which contributed 20% of the innings total. 70 times (21.3%) by ENG. 51 times (29.3%) against ENG.
The highest score where the 10th inning contributed 20% was RE Foster & W Rhodes for ENG vs AUS 1902 scoring 130 out of 577 (23%)
The lowest score where the 10th partnership contributed 20% was TR McKibbin & H Trumble for AUS vs ENG 1896 scoring 19 out of 44 (43%)
Fantastic work, sir. So it is (obviously) unusual, but not as rare as I imagined. I tip my hat to you for doing the research.
Which website do all of you cricket fans go as your “one stop shop” for all things cricket; i.e. news, scores, analysis, statistics, etc.? ESPN Cricinfo is big, but any others?
Cricinfo for most things
BBC Sport for county matches
Cricinfo is der shit for international. One of the internet’s best websites.
For Australian domestic and club - PlayCricket
Cricbuzz isn’t bad for an alternative trip Cricinfo either.
Pakistan were beaten pretty thoroughly at home by Bangladesh after declaring their first innings at 448/6.
Sri Lanka put up a decent fight but were beaten by a fairly clinical England
Both tests were way more interesting than they promised to be after the first day and a half.
Pakistan looked very comfortable on a very dead pitch, at least after they recovered from 16/3. From 448/6d they then somehow managed to at one point be in a position where it looked like they’d lose by an innings!
Sri Lanka looked dreadful in the first innings at 6/3 and then 92/6 but a second innings fightback gave England plenty to think about.
For the life of me I do not understand why PAK, with as good a pace attack as anyone, grind them down into the dust by playing on pitches more suited to landing fighter aircraft on. Is it all about the PCB just not wanting to lose? How’s that plan going?
Literally been wondering this for 40 years.
England get to 427 against Sri Lanka at lords, thanks to a lovely hundred by Root, a run a ball ton from Atkinson at 8, and not a lot else from the batters, sadly.
Not bad after being put in though.