Great innings from Crawley which has sorted the number three spot.
Now we need a new captain to replace the ultra defensive Root.
They surely batted at least an hour longer than seemed necessary. Buttler also oddly stuck in 2nd gear which you assume was on instruction from the captain as clearly he could have hit out.
Mind you they have them 20 for 2 already
Interesting thoughts on the declaration. I think Root is learning about pressing home an advantage -those extra runs weigh heavy on the opposition, and then they loose 3 wickets.
It is probably going to rain on Tuesday.
They could probably have had the same score but a bit quicker with more intent?
Bruce
Bruce - I suspect the strategy was to have a go at the Pakistan top order twice with the new ball/relatively new ball and for that they needed to bat almost to the close, which meant some meandering along and not exposing England’s lower-order batsmen too early. On paper, the England team has a long-ish tail albeit Woakes & Bess (he’s obviously in for his batting as much as his bowling ) can hang around. Mind you, I think Buttler’s simple c&b was probably due to this…it was an unnatural shot for him to say the least.
Anyway, it worked with 3 quick wickets…with the ball only 11 overs old for today.
Thankfully, DRS also prevented a few incorrect (cum poor) decisions yesterday.
@JohnF - if not Root then who? I’m sure many of us would like to see Root concentrate on batting and get his average back up.
I’m not seeing a long list of candidates with strong CVs for the role. England struggle to fill the top-6 in the batting order and none of the bowlers are realistic candidates…and with great respect to Stokes, making the prize all-rounder captain captain doesn’t normally go well.
What a luxury; debating if England should declare at 500 or 590!
I don’t see another captain in this team. Root’s biggest problem is probably that as captain he seems to have lost the ability to regularly make match changing innings.
My suggestion for that is to stop playing white ball for England but I doubt he would want to do that.
Bruce
I love it when just guys fight it out, Roots seems a nice bloke just needs a bit of mogul to use Aussie slang.
I think he did the right thing, should rap this up if the weather holds up.
Bruce - if we now have a credible #3, fraught with assumptions about #'s 1 & 2 I admit, then perhaps, just perhaps, Root can settle at #4 and get some runs without having to run the gauntlet of a nearly new ball.
Such a shame there’s only time this summer for pyjama cricket against the Aussies, with 3 x T20s at AB and 3 x ODIs at OT, all assuming the weather holds.
I’m still worried that in Tests the England team will come a long way 2nd in Australia. I suspect Warner won’t be Broad’s bunny on home turf.
I know what you mean. I just get fed up with Root’s extremely conservative approach.
I also think it badly affects his batting and that needs to be at its best against Australia.
I’d give it to Stokes as I think the extra responsibility improves his game.
It’s tricky these days as few have the opportunity to captain at senior level. Root had little experience of captaincy as he grew up - and it shows. But who would you thrust under the spotlight?
I favour whoever shows the man-management skills, be it batsman or bowler (it’s rare for a keeper to be captain). I wonder if Bess is a possible candidate, if not him who, Woakes? Allrounders tend to fail - none since Greig, and he had his flaws. A quickie - it’s too late for Broad, and it’s too early to tell about Archer. Perhaps a Curran?
What has Shane Warne done to his hair? Enjoying the Cricket though.
Is it part of the England captain’s job description that he has to allow Stuart Broad to waste all of the reviews?
The weather forecast suggests Pakistan are likely to get a draw from this game, as Monday & Tuesday (storms) are looking very wet & windy.
Perhaps just as well as the team fines committee (noting the hotel - no driving home!) would have had plenty of cases to review yesterday, what with several butter fingered drops and JA’s achievements. Broad’s defence of ‘but I ran him out’ would, I’m sure, be rejected on the basis it cost JA a wicket, it wasn’t the batsman they wanted out and when Pakistan bat there’s often a suicidal run-out.
Every time I switched on last night they were walking off. Hopefully I’ll get to see some play tonight.
Don’t bet on it, looks like it might (maybe) be more off than on.
This however is the reality right now
Weather/wind is from west to east
Looking further out to the west there is not much showing, but the sun can/will cause midday/pm cloud buildup.
Enough play for Anderson to get to 600 would be great. England have been a bit sketchy in the slips this summer but Broad’s drop at mid on was horrible. Maybe the light was bad after all!
Fair play to Buttler who has had a good game with the gloves as well as the bat. Great response to being on the brink of being dropped.
Bruce
Sadly the days of uncovered wickets, with rain being the cue to get Derek Underwood bowling on a ‘sticky dog’ of a wicket are now a distant memory. Such a shame.
41 - 0 after 18
Bad light & now its raining.
I’ve not been watching other than an occasional look at www BBC, they are saying India look determined & Eng fielding has been sloppy.
Looks like more rain stoppages today, tomorrow WX is a wet morning & a dry afternoon.
After a bit of faffing, managed to sync the radio commentary with the TV, brilliant, then it started raining. Sods law. Do enjoy TMS.