Two fantastic matches that go into the afternoon of the fifth day.
Hope the next three follow this.
Proper Test Match cricket at its best.
England v India Cricket Test Matches – we have a proper series here
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Happy cricket days!
TMS is the only way to “watch” cricket, Shirley?
Well it is nice to “see” it. I used to sometimes watch it on TV with the radio commentary on. Digital delays make that more difficult these days
Two great games, regardless of today’s result – with records being broken left, right and centre. We even have a first from Brendon McCullum, who has admitted to the BBC that England perhaps made a mistake by choosing to bowl after winning the toss at Edgbaston. Roll on Lord’s, possibly with a slightly more dangerous bowling attack. Will Zak Crawley be there?
Bumrah will make the Indian attack more dangerous
Smithy is shaping up.
Andy Zaltzmans reel video thing about the England scorecard of the first innings is brilliant.
Quite amusing India challenging England to do the one thing they’re completely unable to do – batting out for a draw. Entertaining as they are, they’ll never be a great team without being able to play all situations (or with that bowling attack to be fair). Well played India.
England’s bowling attack looks worryingly toothless and one dimensional which doesn’t bode well for the winter – or the rest of the series for that matter!
Agreed. Far too “samey”. If Archer can play more than one game a season, he’d be a useful player to have in there. A left armer might help too, but looking at Josh Hull last Sunday, getting deposited all over West Bridgford, it may not be him just yet.
Is Reece Topley injured still or does he just play white ball these days on the odd occasion he’s fit?
i believe it is just white ball … like a lot of our pacemen he struggles to stay fit add Olly Stone and Mark Wood to that list
I was at Edgbaston for the second test on day one. The afternoon and evening sessions were pretty grim. We’re not a great bowling unit at the moment, and need injured players back badly. Tongue, Carse and Woakes is not an attack to strike fear into most sides, let alone one with Gill, Pant, Jaiswal and Rahul.
Woakes is one of my favourite ever cricketers, by all accounts a lovely bloke, and quite possibly the handsomest man ever to play cricket for England. But 3 wickets in 4 innings at 97 is not one wants from an opening bowler is it? Add to that 3 failures with the bat as an all rounder. Given he was always unlikely to go to Australia I wonder if he’s sadly just played his last test for England. Carse and Tongue at least have relative youth on their side and the chance of improving with more experience.
Yes he’s been rather underwhelming but I suppose he’s coming back from injury and is known to be a bowler who needs a lot of overs under his belt – and I think his figures at Lords are pretty decent. However the attack desperately needs a point of difference such as an Archer, Wood, Stone or even Atkinson – if only they could all be fit at the same time!
True, but how many more tests do A, W and S realistically have left in them? They’ll struggle to reach double figures between them let alone individually, and almost inevitably never together!
What about seeing if Ollie Robinson has bucked his ideas up?
England went one up in India and lost the series 4-1. Every chance of the same happening again.
The most ominous aspect of England’s heavy defeat is that this was an India team without their best bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who was dropped to allow him a rest. Bumrah is currently the most effective bowler in the world cricket, but we were led to believe that the rest of India’s current attack were , at best, pretty ordinary. So much for that theory then.
England looking slightly better batting than in T2. There’s an exciting young prospect, Joe Root, 99 not out so far.
Nicely balanced match at the end of T3 day 2.
Bizarre number of ball changes though.
Even nicelierly balanced at the end of the first innings, both sides out for 387.
Barney Ronay in today’s Grauniad. God, he’s good.
“Mainly, Bumrah at Lord’s was just utterly thrilling to watch. As ever he came stuttering in like a man on an imaginary pantomime horse clopping his own coconut halves, bowling leg-cutters, inswing and throat-searing bouncers with no shift of action or grip.”
Told you so!
Today’s game was amazing i n o many ways.
The attritional game that India played for the last two wickets is at the heart of Test cricket.
Today was extraordinary, with India scoring at about 1 an over inching forward and England frustrated by some brave batting by the lower order – the total opposite of T20 and absolutely gripping.
On the flip side, Australia can’t bat for shit, but Starc got 5 wickets in 15 deliveries and Scott Boland got a hat trick as the Windies were dismissed for 27
That was amazing.
Australia can’t bat but can bowl?
England can bat but can’t bowl (in Australia.)
Maybe. Looking forward to the Ashes now eh @junior-wells?
We can bat In Australia and can bowl everywhere.
An indicator as to quite how good this series is?
The Ashes has barely been mentioned on TMS since the 1st Test at Headingley.
Too often great cricket has been ignored in aimless chat about a forthcoming Australian series and yet the one ignored has ended up being significantly better!!!
Has anyone counted the proportion of sessions won by England or India so far this series? India must be well on top. Could easily be 3-0 to India yet it’s 2 -1 England. Stokes is some captain. Bonkers, brilliant test cricket.
Watched it yesterday, from first ball to last. Great old-fashioned test cricket and oh, the agony of that last ball trickling to the stumps and then the bail reluctantly and ever so gently falling to the ground…
It’s funny – everyone says how important Bumrah is (and he is bloody amazing), but they have lost both tests he has played in.
There was a stat doing the rounds showing that since his debut India have actually won more often when he *isn’t* playing than when he is, so this series is following the pattern. Despite that he is, as you say, bloody amazing and a joy to watch from a safe distance.
Maybe the other bowlers just step up when he isn’t playing, rather than relying on him…? It’s a weird one.
Having said that, they should have won this last one, and arguably the first as well. For such a good batting side, it was the batters that let them down.
The vagaries of cricket – India quite easily and quite probably could/should be three up by now…