India in a slightly stronger position, but there’s going to be some pressure on their batting tomorrow. Should be a good game from here!
England 2-27 so scores level.
If England get one more this session you can probably rule out Kholi setting a target and declaring.
Kholi nicks off and the Poms are on top.
Umpire Gough is having a good series, I haven’t seen him have a bad game.
Last chance for England really, need to run through them with the new ball now Pujara has gone
Meanwhile, West Indies and Pakistan have been playing out a cracker in Kingston.
West Indies, 114-7 chasing 168, get home by 1 wicket with Kemar Roach the unlikely batting hero.
Pant nicks off.
England likely to be chasing less than 200
There is also no truth in the rumour that Cricket Australia is pressuring the federal government to offer Rashid Khan fast tracked citizenship.
What will happen to the Afghan cricket team?
I don’t think England, Aus, NZ, and Ireland (remember Ireland team consist of players from both the Republic and N Ireland) will want to play them. Neither will India. Pakistan will, other Full Members may or may not.
Australia is due to play a one-off Test vs Afghanistan at the end of November in Hobart.
Will the Taliban even want an Afghan cricket team? Feels like it might be a bit modern for them. If they do and there is an away fixture, how many players would come back? (How many are currently playing abroad in various competitions?)
Sounds like England are trying to bounce the tail out - partly revenge for Bumrah’s targeting of Anderson in the England innings. Appreciate the spirit, but aiming at the stumps is quite a good way of getting tailenders out too.
If Root was setting these fields to Pant, I could accept his thinking with some animus but short pitched bowling to defensive fields to the longest tail of batting bunnies in Test cricket?
It’s getting to the stage where India can reasonably consider declaring soon, so… yeah.
Doubt Kholi is thunking of a declaration yet but with Shami getting 50 India might get 300 and then he’ll call them in
There you go.
After a farcical delay because Shami came out without some of his equipment, India set England 272 off 60.
My money on a draw.
England 2 down for now in 2nd over.
2 hours ago were odds on, now are odds against.
Hameed and Bairstow gone, the latter on the stroke of tea. Can England Joe Root hold on for the last session?
Nope.
Well that was awful.
“Go after one of us, all 11 will come at you”
One of the headlines, after England’s retaliation went pear-shaped.
The problem here is this Indian view is the standover tactics of a common street gang.
The resolution is real ugly.
Yeah, there’s a line between aggressive fast bowling and just threatening people with physical pain for daring to play against you, and roughing up a tail-ender for 10 balls is the wrong side of that line.
The unfortunate thing is it worked so it’ll be tried again.