creeeeeeeekeeeeeet

[boltonboris]

Well if I was loaded, I'm certainly not anymore!!

[Worthy4England]

I quite like the meme, India have had the first pictures back, won the toss and decided to bat first....

[Worthy4England]

I see the IPL are going for the one day test match! Saffers won toss, batted. 55 All out....

India then lost 6 wickets for no runs...but did manage 155.

Jeez.

[Worthy4England]

105 over test match...and we also have Saffers sending a weakened test side to New Zealand, because of when they've scheduled their own T20 competition. They should be fined. A shit load.

[MattySlug]

David Warner’s Baggy Green Caps got lost but got found again for his final test

[TANGODANCER]

David Warner’s Baggy Green Caps got lost but got found again for his final test

Aye, good luck to him in his retirement. He'll be missed.

[jimbo]

India tomorrow. First of 5. We’ll likely get hammered.
Interesting team selection with our only seamers being the notably fragile Mark Wood and Ben Stokes. Otherwise it’s 3 spinners and Joe Root. I assume they’re not expecting a green seamer

[BWFC_Insane]

India tomorrow. First of 5. We’ll likely get hammered.
Interesting team selection with our only seamers being the notably fragile Mark Wood and Ben Stokes. Otherwise it’s 3 spinners and Joe Root. I assume they’re not expecting a green seamer

Stokes can't bowl at all post knee surgery, its Wood only seamer.

[jimbo]

India tomorrow. First of 5. We’ll likely get hammered.
Interesting team selection with our only seamers being the notably fragile Mark Wood and Ben Stokes. Otherwise it’s 3 spinners and Joe Root. I assume they’re not expecting a green seamer

Stokes can't bowl at all post knee surgery, its Wood only seamer.

Yep. Just seen him confirm he can’t bowl, so it really will be the odd 4 over burst by Wood breaking up a barrage of mediocre spin.

[Worthy4England]

^^ Good job they're not used to facing spinners then!

[BWFC_Insane]

I don’t really understand the selection. You could still play Jimmy alongside wood and have three spinners if you include Root in there…and I suspect he won’t be much worse than any of the others.

Two seamers in case you end up having to bowl first or if there is ever any movement off the pitch or conditions.

[Worthy4England]

It's going to be interesting for a couple of reasons, I suspect, one being how Bazball translates to corrugated spin wickets...I can recall we were pretty relieved when Lyons got injured, so there'll be that to watch if we bat first...

And if we bowl first, there'll obviously be our three spinners...

Doubt I'll be up at 04:00 and I think when I do grace the UK morning, I might firstly peep through a crack in the fingers...

[BWFC_Insane]

It's going to be interesting for a couple of reasons, I suspect, one being how Bazball translates to corrugated spin wickets...I can recall we were pretty relieved when Lyons got injured, so there'll be that to watch if we bat first...

And if we bowl first, there'll obviously be our three spinners...

Doubt I'll be up at 04:00 and I think when I do grace the UK morning, I might firstly peep through a crack in the fingers...

Wise choice. Pitch is a nightmare. Huge spin from day one. But we are playing the best spinners in the world with lads who’ve barely played any cricket yet let alone bowl in India.

Suppose we haven’t got much choice.

[Worthy4England]

It's going to be interesting for a couple of reasons, I suspect, one being how Bazball translates to corrugated spin wickets...I can recall we were pretty relieved when Lyons got injured, so there'll be that to watch if we bat first...

And if we bowl first, there'll obviously be our three spinners...

Doubt I'll be up at 04:00 and I think when I do grace the UK morning, I might firstly peep through a crack in the fingers...

Wise choice. Pitch is a nightmare. Huge spin from day one. But we are playing the best spinners in the world with lads who’ve barely played any cricket yet let alone bowl in India.

Suppose we haven’t got much choice.

Aye - we're pushing 250 which might on a flat seamer feel like "very light," but I guess we're going to have to assess after they bat - good news is it's not 120, so there's something to bowl at. Strike rates are noticeably lower...

[BWFC_Insane]

It's going to be interesting for a couple of reasons, I suspect, one being how Bazball translates to corrugated spin wickets...I can recall we were pretty relieved when Lyons got injured, so there'll be that to watch if we bat first...

And if we bowl first, there'll obviously be our three spinners...

Doubt I'll be up at 04:00 and I think when I do grace the UK morning, I might firstly peep through a crack in the fingers...

Wise choice. Pitch is a nightmare. Huge spin from day one. But we are playing the best spinners in the world with lads who’ve barely played any cricket yet let alone bowl in India.

Suppose we haven’t got much choice.

Aye - we're pushing 250 which might on a flat seamer feel like "very light," but I guess we're going to have to assess after they bat - good news is it's not 120, so there's something to bowl at. Strike rates are noticeably lower...

Yeah when I posted that we were 130 for 6 I think. Or thereabouts. This score is more reasonable verging on ‘good’ in the circumstances.

Comes down to how well our spinners can go on this but I’m not sure batting we could do a lot more. Root got out sweeping but other couple I saw including Bairstow looked like pretty difficult balls to deal with.

[TANGODANCER]

245 seems not overly bad. Que sera....

[BWFC_Insane]

India batting has been brutal so far. Exposed our mediocre spinners sadly. We have a breakthrough now but unless we can more consistently land the ball where it needs to be this is going to be a huge score.

I don’t think we’ve managed more than two decent balls in a row yet.

[Worthy4England]

The bowling has been poor albeit Leech at least looked economical (if not frightening), what I would say about our batting is they all made starts, apart from Pope. Hopefully will catch the highlights later.

[BWFC_Insane]

The bowling has been poor albeit Leech at least looked economical (if not frightening), what I would say about our batting is they all made starts, apart from Pope. Hopefully will catch the highlights later.

Yeah but that pitch is a hard one to bat on, our spinners are barely wet behind the ears and it shows.

I think if we had any sort of half decent established spinner then that score would be reasonable. The problem is that we are basically rocking up to harrods with a Lidl shopping bag in the spin bowling department.

[Worthy4England]

Yeah we've bowled some shockers, just off the highlights...but I don't think some of our batting helped us much either. There were decent balls, but if you're nowhere near the pitch, then they have a lot more time to move a long way...