creeeeeeeekeeeeeet

[BWFC_Insane]

Root's gone now. Pope and Foakes need to put on a hundred partnership or this one is done and dusted.

[Worthy4England]

Certainly uphill from here...Pope isn't looking in good nick against this level of spin.

[BWFC_Insane]

Lets be honest. The pitch is difficult and the bowling is world class. But England's batting is very very sub standard. Stokes, Root - ok. Sibley - horrendous shot to get out to. Bairstow - awful. Crawley - not up to this level for me as an opener. That's just too many to carry generally but in these conditions its impossible.

[BWFC_Insane]

Pope - that is embarrassing. You've missed a straight ball. Not good enough. No way near a test batsman.

[Worthy4England]

Fat lady warming up.

[Prufrock]

I'm at the stage where I would take it just not being f*cking Kohli who gets the winning runs.

[jimbo]

Surely archer and broad need to just try and be aggressive here. Trying to hang around isn’t going to work whereas a few quick boundaries might give us a slight chance.

[Worthy4England]

and SWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG....

[Worthy4England]

Surely archer and broad need to just try and be aggressive here. Trying to hang around isn’t going to work whereas a few quick boundaries might give us a slight chance.

Yeah - a 2 ball 12 > 60 minute 2 at this juncture.

[Prufrock]

Leachy

[Worthy4England]

Leachy

Maybe he shouldn't swing....

[Prufrock]

Keep missing the straight ones and you're in trouble.

[Prufrock]

Here we go again

[TANGODANCER]

"“I still remain bewildered why they don’t bat out of the crease,” adds Adrian Goldman. “If the ball doesn’t pitch, the pitch doesn’t enter the equation."

Always worked for me. I was a fast bowler but adopted the Broad approach of attack. What do we have to lose? Makes sense.

[Worthy4England]

18 wickets for 127 so far today - probably doesn't matter much where they're stood in respect of their crease.

[BWFC_Insane]

18 wickets for 127 so far today - probably doesn't matter much where they're stood in respect of their crease.

Let’s not pretend our batting isn’t useless. We had first go on this. Probably ended up 50-60 runs short first time round and maybe similar second time round. It’s a tricky pitch but some dismissals are dismal.

[TANGODANCER]

Got to take one (or two) on the chin occasionally. Much depends on how we recover and I don't doubt we will. I don't subscribe to the Bob Dylan lyrics attitude...

[BWFC_Insane]

Well that was in the end a complete humiliating drubbing. Batting wise we're a mess.
20 wickets for under 200 runs. Even on a tricky pitch that's just not good enough. We need to start thinking about the Ashes but it scares me.

Bowling wise for me Jofra, Wood, Anderson, Broad, Stokes, Curran, Woakes - we've enough there to pick 3 plus Stokes. Spinners - for me Moeen is our best hope and he can in theory bat. Leach is a reasonable next best option.

Batting wise though I don't know where to start. Sibley - no. Crawley - perhaps at 3. Bairstow - no. Pope - no.

For me we've got Stokes, Root and Buttler (as wk Batsman) who I think technically are good enough for test level cricket. Stokes a hard handed left hander clearly is never doing much in India. But generally these three are clearly good enough.

Beyond that though I don't think we've anyone good enough to rock up in an Ashes series and do well consistently. So all three above would have to collectively be on top form.

[BWFC_Insane]

I don't subscribe to the Bob Dylan lyrics attitude...

Unmatched and unrivalled in quality - neither do England's batsmen.

[Bruce Rioja]

Well, I have my ticket for the Saturday at OT in September against this lot. Turns out that that's day two as well. I doub't I'll be seeing 17 wickets fall though.