England v India First Test Trent Bridge

First topic message reminder :

The 5 test series cramped into a 42 day schedule gets underway at Trent Bridge tomorrow. The 2 middling sides have a lot to prove. Hopefully we'll get to have some exciting cricket.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:50 for Ballance . Doing his best to nail down the n°3 position for the foreseeable future. and also the 100 partnership.

Anyone reckon Ashwin should be playing, would surely be more threatening than Binny, who didn't exactly look a great batsman either?

England also really need to sort out their spinner problem.

Don't want to risk setting up Binny for a fifer ...but I reckon my granny could play him with a stick of rhubarb...

Robson fifty says thanks   

Binny is like a bowling machine set on 1/10 difficulty.

But still players are playing well so dont want to take too much away from them.

At the risk of jinxing them, its fill your boots time. Nerves last night after Cooks dismissal have dissipated, theres no demons in the pitch or the bowlers.

GSC wrote:At the risk of jinxing them, its fill your boots time. Nerves last night after Cooks dismissal have dissipated, theres no demons in the pitch or the bowlers.

Well yes. But they need to stay switched on ...only takes one mistake to get you out ; making sure you keep concentrating in this situation is something England haven't always done in recent times.
Certainly no demons around.

Linebreaker wrote:Maybe not talk about the win today but at least try and set the platform for it (if that's the plan).

England should aim to be around 130-1 around lunch. They can't go too slowly.

131/1... pretty much spot on again.   

59 a piece and its lunch-

best session for england so far

LB good call lol

Comfortably Englands session. Unless India can produce a post break burst like England did a few times it could be a long afternoon.

131/1 at lunch...good session for England ; 88 from 31 with just the one alarm when Kohli couldn't hold on at leg slip.

Well played both of them. Same again next session please...

Duty281 wrote:For those of us able to engage the gray matter, and not be blinded by anti-Englishness, we will see that forcing a result on this pitch will be a very tough ordeal, made harder by the Indian bowlers being out of form.

Cook's dismissal was freakish but so long as England go unscathed through the first half hour tomorrow, they should be able to bat through the day in relative comfort and put the Indians under pressure going into day four.

This is exactly what happened.

Some solid batting by Ballance and Robson this morning has put England in a much healthier position. Going on the attack this afternoon - with the aid of a softer ball and an Indian side losing confidence - will be imperative to really get on the front foot.

no real issues for either Robson or Ballance in that session (apart from one chance offered by Robson). Will be interesting to see if Shami can find some of the reverse swing England managed after lunch. Jadeja getting a little bit of turn, but it's slow. These two need to settle in for bed and breakfast.

who'd be a bowler eh?

Linebreaker wrote:

Linebreaker wrote:Maybe not talk about the win today but at least try and set the platform for it (if that's the plan).

England should aim to be around 130-1 around lunch. They can't go too slowly.

131/1... pretty much spot on again.   

  

Nice one , lb. what's tea ?

225/2 is my call.

alfie wrote:

Linebreaker wrote:

Linebreaker wrote:Maybe not talk about the win today but at least try and set the platform for it (if that's the plan).

England should aim to be around 130-1 around lunch. They can't go too slowly.

131/1... pretty much spot on again.   

  

Nice one , lb.   what's tea ?

223-2.   (not telling you which batsman gets out though)

Think they need to do a little better than more of the "same".
Perhaps they should start to turn the screws a little tighter and continue to accelerate the run rate?

Wonder what Gerry makes of the Indian attack after labelling Jimmy a club bowler.

Gerry goes missing during these spells GSC

Mad for Chelsea wrote:no real issues for either Robson or Ballance in that session (apart from one chance offered by Robson). Will be interesting to see if Shami can find some of the reverse swing England managed after lunch. Jadeja getting a little bit of turn, but it's slow. These two need to settle in for bed and breakfast.

who'd be a bowler eh?

Indeed. Looks like a lot of work for India's bowlers ...the England pace men will fervently hope they are kept working until Saturday evening at least !
The one advantage India have is that Jadeja is unlikely to be knocked around as much as Ali , so they can rotate their pace men more easily. Though when Binny is one of the pace men...

220/1 at tea. 335/2 at stumps. Declared at 650 by the end of day four. Eight wickets for Anderson on Day Five. Victory by ten wickets, after Cook hits all four runs that are needed for the win.

Fair point lb ; but I mean just basically play safely...I think the scoring rate will take care of itself as the bowlers tire.
New ball again around tea time so it would be nice if these two were still there to take it on.

Duty281 wrote:220/1 at tea. 335/2 at stumps. Declared at 650 by the end of day four. Eight wickets for Anderson on Day Five. Victory by ten wickets, after Cook hits all four runs that are needed for the win.

I'll have some of what he's on

alfie wrote:Fair point lb  ; but I mean just basically play safely...I think the scoring rate will take care of itself as the bowlers tire.
New ball again around tea time so it would be nice if these two were still there to take it on.

Hopefully for England, yes. Would be nice to see them both closing in on centuries as well.   

Just hit the bad for 4 and take it easy- and try and end the rate at around 3 unless we get to 400 with loads of wickets then we could possibly push for a potential win smashing it (but that is a long way off)

the faster men have been easier to score off.

India should bowl with Jadeja , Bhuv and Binny with Dhoni standing up...with an insdie out field.
a wicket might bring in two or three

Eng still 2 sessions away from safety

Duty281 wrote:220/1 at tea. 335/2 at stumps. Declared at 650 by the end of day four. Eight wickets for Anderson on Day Five. Victory by ten wickets, after Cook hits all four runs that are needed for the win.

  

That's the Duty we all know and love ! Welcome back ...and glad to see you've recovered from the funk brought on by events in Brazil and Headingley   

For a day or two there I thought you were auditioning for a role as the New Trebell ...

While it's nice to be thinking about how best to try to win the game, England are a very long way behind still, more than 300, so let's not get carried away. If England are only 3-4 wickets down at the close (and about 100 behind, maybe a bit more), then we can re-evaluate. For the moment, draw is heavy favourite (very very heavy, but then for me it has been since lunch on day 1).

yep if we get to 400 we hit out - but before 350 we take it easy sticking to an RR of around 3.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:While it's nice to be thinking about how best to try to win the game, England are a very long way behind still, more than 300, so let's not get carried away. If England are only 3-4 wickets down at the close (and about 100 behind, maybe a bit more), then we can re-evaluate. For the moment, draw is heavy favourite (very very heavy, but then for me it has been since lunch on day 1).

Agreed. 

Mad for Chelsea wrote:While it's nice to be thinking about how best to try to win the game, England are a very long way behind still, more than 300, so let's not get carried away ...

Exactly. A couple of wickets lost in the first 20 minutes after lunch and the scoreboard will look very different. As we are for now ....

That's a pretty big no ball

surprised to see Sharma starting off after lunch. Would have thought they'd give Shami a go for the reverse, from memory Sharma doesn't reverse it much? Starts with a huge huge no-ball. Surely it can't be that hard to sort that out??

Sounded like a lot of bat there!

Sharma does the business.

well there you go. Sharma strikes. no DRS and Robson has clearly edged it. Another undeserved break for India...

There goes one wicket ! Looked like inside edge (?) but Robson on his way...

Gutting

time for the rest of the world to just cancel all games with India unless they change there stance on DRS

Smashed it. Unlucky Sam. Decent ball from Sharma though, little bit of in movement.

Tbh, I don't get why, from a sporting view, teams are allowed to pick and choose whether they want. Surely for competitive balance, its used all the time, or none of the time.

From a political view its obvious

that was plumb and on the back-foot.
hotspot showed a white spot but cameras zoomed in did not show any clear edge....nor did snicko pick anything woody contact
an example to me of how DRS could have created controversy

No inside edge. I don't think. It's close, but I think the umpire got it just about right. Plus the edge is at the bottom, and the ball passes about halfway up the bat. Fantastic call

Ah the perils of playing a backward, pathetic cricketing nation like India.

Time to steady the ship now.

KP_fan wrote:that was plumb and on the back-foot.
hotspot showed a white spot but cameras zoomed in did not show any clear edge.
an example to me of how DRS could have created controversy

not really, hotspot shows a clear inside-edge. It then hits both pads which creates a lot of interference with the snicko, but the hotspot is clear, a white mark appearing right as the ball passes the bat = edge.

that's three decisions which would have been overturned with DRS already, and we're only halfway through day 3 of the series.

JDizzle wrote:Smashed it. Unlucky Sam. Decent ball from Sharma though, little bit of in movement.

Did he though ? Replays not conclusive ...mark on the bat which could have come from hitting his pad - all close together...
Think he did edge it but I am not getting too steamed up about it...England had some luck getting Vijay .

I'm not as convinced as Beefy anyway.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:

KP_fan wrote:that was plumb and on the back-foot.
hotspot showed a white spot but cameras zoomed in did not show any clear edge.
an example to me of how DRS could have created controversy

not really, hotspot shows a clear inside-edge. It then hits both pads which creates a lot of interference with the snicko, but the hotspot is clear, a white mark appearing right as the ball passes the bat = edge.

that's three decisions which would have been overturned with DRS already, and we're only halfway through day 3 of the series.

this is a case study in " how Hot-Spot gets it wrong"

2-1 to India on DRS saves then.

The best case scenario is bat/pad... but even then it's still possible it was pad first. Decision would probably have stayed with the on field umpire, as even for the third umpire, it would be heavy guesswork.

kingraf wrote:The best case scenario is bat/pad... but even then it's still possible it was pad first. Decision would probably have stayed with the on field umpire, as even for the third umpire, it would be heavy guesswork.

nah the ball clearly "passes" the bat before hitting the pad, so the mark on the bat is either a faint inside edge or him hitting his back pad (he's quite clearly not hit his front pad). I'm fairly certain it's an inside-edge: there's a small something on snicko, and a very slight deflection on the front-on angle, there's also nothing on the back pad on hotspot I don't think.

For me there's enough evidence to (in theory) overturn the decision. Unfortunately, because India don't understand science, we'll never know.

There's something on both pads MfC, the front pad picks up a little something as the ball passes as well, before it hits the back pad.

alfie wrote:

JDizzle wrote:Smashed it. Unlucky Sam. Decent ball from Sharma though, little bit of in movement.

Did he though ?  Replays not conclusive ...mark on the bat which could have come from hitting his pad - all close together...
Think he did edge it but I am not getting too steamed up about it...England had some luck getting Vijay .

I think so. Hot spot on the bat, doesn't hit his front pad, that gets overturned with DRS. And I know players may try and con the umpire, but Robson's demeanour after he was given suggests to me he hit it.

Indeed England had some luck getting Vijay, and I just hope no-one tries to defend that as 'evening it out'.