The Cricket Thread

If so it's probably the best match England will have all series.

Might only be 4-0!

Some shift put in by Ajaz Patel in the NZ vs India game - 10 - 119

Hope New Zealand don't waste his efforts by losing their top four cheapl... oh.

Balladeer wrote:Hope New Zealand don't waste his efforts by losing their top four cheapl... oh.

But yeah a 10-fer, amazing.

Edit: NZ are now 5 down for peanuts.

And 6, not looking good. Patel will have to save this innings as well with a ton.

Is this one of those minefields that England had to play on last winter?

62 all out :dread:

Did I say top four? I meant top ten.

Jimmy's out of the first test. Expected XI is:

Burns
Hameed
Malan
Root
Stokes
Pope
Buttler
Woakes
Robinson
Wood
Leach/Broad

I'd probably have played Leach and Broad over Woakes, but i respect the desire to bolster the tail and otherwise that's pretty close to what I'd have picked. So there's nowhere for me to run when they're thrashed.

I do worry about our openers this series, going to be a lot of situations with Root coming in early I fear. When you think back to Strauss/Cook opening in 2010/11, it's like chalk and cheese.

Hopefully Hameed can at least knuckle down and not give away his wicket cheaply.

Balladeer wrote:I'd probably have played Leach and Broad over Woakes, but i respect the desire to bolster the tail and otherwise that's pretty close to what I'd have picked. So there's nowhere for me to run when they're thrashed.

I reckon Woakes deserves a shot. Broad and Anderson can combine for the pink-ball test where presumably they'll rest Wood. I've not been that impressed with Broad in his recent matches.

Agree (unsurprisingly) on Leach. He needs to be playing the entire series.

Under 7 hours to go. :toot:

Drumstick wrote:Under 7 hours to go.

Bit harsh, I'm sure England will manage to last at least twenty minutes!

Looking forward to this. Genuinely have no idea what's going to happen. England have enough about them to win the first test but they can make a mess of things quickly too.

If we can scrape a draw here, particularly with the weather that is forecast, then we've half a chance of drawing the series. I just hope we win the toss and bowl, I can see us getting skittled if we're asked to bat first.

Weather is looking like it could wash out roughly a day's worth of play over the first test, so if we can not lose within 4 days we could escape with a draw.

It now seems likely we could get two D/N tests considering Perth is off the menu which is a double bonus for us, because a) we are terrible at Perth, and b) theoretically D/N matches should play to our strengths with the pink ball.

There's no guarantees but there are actually some reasons for optimism.

Word on the street is that Broad isn't playing

What a tosser our Joe is :datass:

Bat FIRST.
Bat DEEP.
Bat LONG.

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