creeeeeeeekeeeeeet

[Worthy4England]

TBF mate, think we both had 500 for first innings. So not sure I'm qualified to give a punt. Maybe 350ish?

[Worthy4England]

Been having a think and maybe a father's day libation. The first innings, in terms of attacking cricket now looks pretty good. We got there quicker, didn't use all our wickets and you still didn't get them on a feather bed.

[Prufrock]

If it's going to rain can it get on with it!

[BWFC_Insane]

Conditions fluke Australia 2 wickets.

[BWFC_Insane]

Ridiculous umpiring. Utterly ridiculous.

[BWFC_Insane]

Massive day ahead. You can almost smell the potential for collapse from here. England have to make sure they build a platform. Bazball hasn't all been about smashing it all over and this morning the key has to be not losing more than 1 wicket and accumulating. We can then reassess in the afternoon session.

Aussies know they are two quick wickets away from being completely on top.

Forecast is not good for tomorrow which adds to the pressure as no doubt Stokes will want to be bowling mid afternoon today.....

Danger.

[Gooner Girl]

Daughter is playing in her first secondary school cricket match today! Cricket isn’t really her sport but she did a bit at primary school and joined the club hoping mostly she might get a day off school to play a match . She’s got most of today off and half tomorrow for an athletics match and is ridiculously smug at her twin brother who’s traipsing into school in long trousers/blazer etc whilst she went off in shorts and tshirt. It’s really muggy here today. Anyway, forget England, come on Oathall U13 girls!

[jimbo]

Massive day ahead. You can almost smell the potential for collapse from here. England have to make sure they build a platform. Bazball hasn't all been about smashing it all over and this morning the key has to be not losing more than 1 wicket and accumulating. We can then reassess in the afternoon session.

Aussies know they are two quick wickets away from being completely on top.

Forecast is not good for tomorrow which adds to the pressure as no doubt Stokes will want to be bowling mid afternoon today.....

Danger.

Yeah feck it. We’ll just tee off and reverse ramp from ball 1 and somehow make it work

[Prufrock]

Really good start this. Nice and positive. Given the forecast I think this afternoon is going to be "incident packed".

Bit more swing today and a bit in the pitch.

[BWFC_Insane]

Massive day ahead. You can almost smell the potential for collapse from here. England have to make sure they build a platform. Bazball hasn't all been about smashing it all over and this morning the key has to be not losing more than 1 wicket and accumulating. We can then reassess in the afternoon session.

Aussies know they are two quick wickets away from being completely on top.

Forecast is not good for tomorrow which adds to the pressure as no doubt Stokes will want to be bowling mid afternoon today.....

Danger.

Yeah feck it. We’ll just tee off and reverse ramp from ball 1 and somehow make it work

Yeah was just about to post it. Its absolutely fabulous.

Match still very much in the balance but just over an hour and over 90 runs added for loss of one (to an absolute stunner).

Its a very difficult situation still because nobody knows what total is needed - how long it will rain tomorrow and what the conditions will be. Last night I reckon in those conditions 180 is a massive challenge. How the pitch is playing this morning and you're way in excess of that.

[boltonboris]

Win probability slightly in our favour, but does that actually mean anything?

[BWFC_Insane]

Win probability slightly in our favour, but does that actually mean anything?

Stokes will no doubt want to leave Australia a very gettable total.

I'm mostly concerned about our bowling attack tbh so I think its really hard to read what could happen second innings.

Traditionally you'd say that 250 is hard batting last in most cases - but England showed last summer that chasing that in the modern game CAN in some scenarios be nowt.

[jimbo]

Massive day ahead. You can almost smell the potential for collapse from here. England have to make sure they build a platform. Bazball hasn't all been about smashing it all over and this morning the key has to be not losing more than 1 wicket and accumulating. We can then reassess in the afternoon session.

Aussies know they are two quick wickets away from being completely on top.

Forecast is not good for tomorrow which adds to the pressure as no doubt Stokes will want to be bowling mid afternoon today.....

Danger.

Yeah feck it. We’ll just tee off and reverse ramp from ball 1 and somehow make it work

Yeah was just about to post it. Its absolutely fabulous.

Match still very much in the balance but just over an hour and over 90 runs added for loss of one (to an absolute stunner).

Its a very difficult situation still because nobody knows what total is needed - how long it will rain tomorrow and what the conditions will be. Last night I reckon in those conditions 180 is a massive challenge. How the pitch is playing this morning and you're way in excess of that.

It’s really great isn’t it. I thought Australia would be too good, their bowlers too precise for it to pay off. Hopefully we get a decent day tomorrow with enough time to make a good finish, as the match certainly deserves it.

[Prufrock]

Gah Joe. Got to take the rough with the smooth but when it doesn't work boy does it look bad

[Prufrock]

Win probability slightly in our favour, but does that actually mean anything?

Stokes will no doubt want to leave Australia a very gettable total.

I'm mostly concerned about our bowling attack tbh so I think its really hard to read what could happen second innings.

Traditionally you'd say that 250 is hard batting last in most cases - but England showed last summer that chasing that in the modern game CAN in some scenarios be nowt.

A lot depends on how confident the weather forecast is I reckon. Don't want to set them 200 in 4 sessions and then it not rain.

[BWFC_Insane]

Gah Joe. Got to take the rough with the smooth but when it doesn't work boy does it look bad

The thing is IF we lose this test and that's very possible people will bemoan everything. But we're playing an outstanding side here - I still maintain we'd have beaten this lot last summer with a fully fit attack and Bairstow's form.

The way we are playing is critical to our success and the fact we're now giving Australia a proper game that isn't reliant on some fluke chase in the final innings shows how far we've come.

But the usual hacks will be out moaning about the shots but those shots get us 90 in an hour - so its going to happen. And people then claim what they want is the scoring rate but without mistakes or whatever...yeah...

[Prufrock]

Oh absolutely. More importantly than if we'd have beaten them last year, we'd have got annihilated the year before.

They're the best team in the world over the past few years, and we're right in this and it's front foot and entertaining.

[BWFC_Insane]

Oh absolutely. More importantly than if we'd have beaten them last year, we'd have got annihilated the year before.

They're the best team in the world over the past few years, and we're right in this and it's front foot and entertaining.

Yeah absolutely. The whole ‘turn the aggression on and off’ thing is quite easy to say watching but not that easy playing.

As you say the approach has transformed us. But for me man for man Australia still are slightly ahead.

[BWFC_Insane]

And a classic example there. Brook was becalmed a bit and eventually his way is to try something and he gets out. For me he got out because he was not scoring.

That’s the thing. Unlike many sides even when England are smashing them the Aussies are good enough to chip away at wickets.

[Worthy4England]

Think we're at tipping point. Good partnership here and with Mo up next should resolve the game. The Aussies are usually good at these inflexion points. Let's see what we've got.