Stokes and Smith can Bazball more than that!
Wondering if there is a nice summary of the physics behind how pitches suddenly change, whether overnight or during the day. I get the sun beating down and forming cracks, etc. But it’s certainly covered the protected overnight.
150 looks more than enough at the moment.
Nicely poised for the final day. It’s easy, after that final half hour, to assume England will roll India over here, but India have some batting and will look to come out tomorrow and calm that intensity down, they don’t need that many runs. 4 wickets though, even if one is a nightwatchman.
India have long tail.
Washington Sundar is purportedly an all-rounder, although it didn’t look like it in the 1st innings. With one of the 4 wickets being Deep, India have some wickets to play with. Will be a fun watch. Need to get my Monday work done early.
Sam Konstas has reportedly reached out to Zak Crawley for advice after getting another duck.
Okay now I’m definitely hoping to see a tied match with identical scores in both innings.
What a way to lose! It was definitely entertaining.
What an absolute shithouse way to get the final wicket, you love to see it.
Interested in Jadeja’s tactics at the end, grinding the runs out slowly without attempting scoring shots beyond singles. You can’t help thinking it was always going to end with Siraj getting out, but it came closer to working that England would have liked. Was probably their best chance of winning out of a poor selection of options.
Well that was bloody well done!
Meanwhile at Sabina, with WI needing 200 for an unlikely win, Mitchell Starc produces a directors cut personal highlight reel.
In his 100th Test, in taking 400 Test wickets, taking not one, two but three scalps in his first over, for the 21st time, has the fastest 5FA in Test history (15 balls) and WI are in abject disarray at 9-26 in 14 overs.
Shithey!
Boland finishes with a hat trick and WI are all out for 27.
Will at least save on the costs to light the oval for play on Days 3, 4 & 5.
New record of 7 ducks in a single innings.
Day1 Eng v IND @ Old Trafford
A curiously, well lethargic days play. Only watched sporadically. IND seeming in no particular hurry or bother get to stumps 4-264 off 83 overs with the top order all getting solid starts and Pant retiring hurt.
The pitch looks like a tarmac yet ENG will the toss and elect to bowl. I guess on the basis the pitch won’t deteriorate and being 2-1 up it’s IND prerogative to make the pace.
The situation with Pant is interesting. Never a particularly clinical standard gloveman, he has been barely international standard since returning. But now he has the plumb gig of batting in his winsome way and then spending the rest of the game in the pavilion with his feet up as somebody else, less credentialled with the bat, but better with the gloves does the hard work. I think that stretches the intention of the rule allowing an injured keeper being replaced by a specialist keeper outside the originally selected 11.
As we Philistines say over here: “If you’re not cheating you’re not trying.”
Well after England’s display of sportsmanship in T2 at the end of Day 3(?), I bet India are really concerned.
When Jadeja went first thing, I thought, here we go again, from 264-4 to 300 all out. But these two have hung around for an hour and put on a few.
Shaping up to be another interesting test.
Pant has returned to bat. This seems… Unwise.
Doesn’t look like he’s going to run though.
Both stuff of legends and calamity/farce very much on the cards
…
I mean, how many singles are they running?
Day2 ENG v IND
Bit of an old fashioned day’s play so far.
Pace bowling getting handy bounce and movement. Perhaps a fraction short. Maybe not. No luck. Batters showing great application to hang in there and keep the scoreboard quietly ticking over.
A question for @Teuton if I could about Jamie Smith’s keeping.
Am starting to warm to the lad. Can handle the bat and is sound with the gloves. Good hands and athletic. But I am wondering about his footwork, likely his trained technique. To my mind typically neat English approach.
Take a standard RH medium pacer to a RHB. Delivery on 4th stump line inviting the drive. Batter shoulders arms. Ball goes straight through to the keeper, waist high. Smith will take that delivery straight on where he stands. If the line of path bends more towards 1st slip he takes it outside the body on his right. Which sounds very conventional.
But down here in the heathen hemisphere we like our keepers to “take the ball on the inside”. In the first instance above we’d like to see the keeper move to their right, past the line of the ball and glove the ball on their left. For the second, again they move to the right and glove it square on. A busier technique, moving laterally if you like.
The theory is that if an edge from a RHB is taken in most cases it goes to the keepers right. So the keeper can cover more ground for a catch without needing to dive. Also allows the slips to stand a yard wider.
It’s not a technique I’ve seen as often with ENG keepers, though my memory of Foakes was he did. If aging memory serves, as did Alan Knott.
Would that be aligned with your view or just another sign of impending dotage on my part?
I’m not watching due to work, but checking the scoreboard. Not sure why they would bring in Pant before Sundar is out. Would be better if he had Bumrah or Siraj on the other side so they could both just whack away without having to run.