The summer of cricket 2020

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Great ton from Morgan. Came in at 44/3 - now victory looks assured for England after this partnership.

(Spoiler: It wasn't.)

Weather aside its pretty frustrating from England. Pity they don't have a 90mph plus bowler to flatten the tail

Its still a strong position but really they've already let around 40 more runs be scored than should have been.

Draw probably the most likely result now with the amount of overs this wag and the weathers taken out.

Ah well another "early" night...

Hope for some better weather tomorrow . Well played Rizwan and Good night all

Struggle to see how we’re going to get a result in here, with the forecasted rain and now this ludicrous bad light situation where seemingly the reading is as soon as it gets a bit gloomy the umpires retire to their room for an early evening room service. Shame, shaping up to be a good test match

Yeah, about 90 overs bowled inside two days + more rain and bad light on the way = virtually no chance of a result.

If I were Pakistan, I would declare overnight and get at England right away. They need to win if they want to have a chance of winning the series, and scratching around for another 12 minutes to get 9 more runs is hardly conducive to that. Get at England straight away and see if you can bowl them out for under 150. Might have a game if that happens!

Once again Pakistan has done many thing right:

Won the toss, bit the bullet and batted....and batted well in atmospheric & pitch conditions where the ball was swinging, seaming and jagging at square angles at times like a heavily spinning pitch.

The 3 and a half good innings have propelled Pak to what's slightly above par score in my view....and if Eng are not astute tomm morning.... another 15 runs from Rizwan could turn it into a really good score.

So I am tempted to say Pak is ahead and more likely to win and my money is on them again....but with a disclaimer...that with Eng you never know.
And assuming weather doesn't take out too much of time from here.

Pak has 3 good seamers.....a quality spinner...and it was obvious in the last game that their captain doesn't know how to use the 5th bowler/ 2nd spinner....of for that matter Azhar appears incapable of processing many variables in his head at a time.....and is Pak's weak link
Stokes ain't playing & that makes Eng weaker too.

Interestingly poised game

Having lost the equivalent of one full day already and with little prospect of making up any of those overs , given the light seems to be gone early all the time , the chances of a result look slim.
Just looked at the forecast and it seems there is plenty more rain about - though I suppose it is the luck of the draw whether it hits the cricket ground or not.
Pakistan at least have runs on the board : if they can shoot England out for 140 - not impossible - they might have a shot at a win. But for England to bat to a decent lead , get them out again , and chase , would probably need much of the remaining scheduled overs to be bowled : not sure that is going to happen.

If we do get significant play today , England will be hoping their sometimes dour openers are ready to play like Boycott for a session or more...

Play not starting on time today because it's...raining.

A shame they can't just shake hands on the draw now!

Sometimes cricket doesn't help itself, you'd think especially given we're playing without fans we could be flexible on session times etc.

We'll be probably be off for lunch while it's dry

And that's before we talk about bad light.

Looks like a total washout today.

Red ball , pink ball , yellow with purple spots...wouldn't help with weather like this.

Should have stayed in Manchester

Cannot remember the last time a summer test calendar was so heavily affected by the weather. Should be glad its just been teams with stronger bowling than batting which has meant 4 results so far. This one is going to take some spectacularly bad batting to get a result sadly.

Play abandoned for the day. This means that unless there is a really low England score on day four, realistically, only England can now win as there is not enough time for England to be bowled out twice.

Odds are on a draw, though.

There's always time for England to be bowled out twice

Duty281 wrote:Yeah, about 90 overs bowled inside two days + more rain and bad light on the way = virtually no chance of a result.

If I were Pakistan, I would declare overnight and get at England right away. They need to win if they want to have a chance of winning the series, and scratching around for another 12 minutes to get 9 more runs is hardly conducive to that. Get at England straight away and see if you can bowl them out for under 150. Might have a game if that happens!

Evening, folks - seems like I've missed a bit of this Test and a lot of bad weather.

If I were Pakistan, I would bat into day 4 .... to bug Burns and Sibley and because I'm like that.

Forecast today and tomorrow is much as it was yesterday, theres a chance of some dry spells long enough to get the players out but its still unlikely we will get in more than half a days play. Chalk this one up as a draw.
Suits and hurts both teams in different ways. Pakistan obviously need a win with the series in mind but really were behind in this test despite having a bit of momentum go their way. England avoid a potential banana skin and cant lose the series, but would've wanted a sweep of this to make up for the loss at the start of the summer. Theres still the over ambitious target of being in the top two of the world league. Bowlers wise it means Anderson and Broad haven't been flogged to death and increases the chance both can play in final test. Anderson had got through a lot of overs here and we may well have seen him creaking second dibs (as happened in previous tests this summer) especially if England had got out quickly. Similar for Pakistans two quicks, expecting them to play 3 back to back tests in a 3 seam attack was risky but now looks like they wont have to bowl much if it all in this test.
Dom Bess must be hoping there's some play just so he can justify England picking XI players. The way this is headed he might be the only bowler to have played in all 5 tests but not bowled in two of them! Same for Fawad Alam, no opportunity to add to his 4 balls faced in a decade!
Long range forecasts arent too great for next week either which really would be a sad end to whats otherwise been an extremely good summer of tests. Incredibly frustrating for Pakistan too who were an inch away from a big win and instead have their media and fans in overdrive hating on the Captain.

Play just about to start on Day 4. But why haven't P declared?

sirfredperry wrote:Play just about to start on Day 4. But why haven't P declared?

Alfie and Olly - where are you to tell Sir Fred my view?

Clearly Eng would rather bowl than bat. So why are P making it easy for them?

About time!

sirfredperry wrote:Play just about to start on Day 4. But why haven't P declared?

Clearly they've been listening to guildford...

Added 13 and wasted 35 minutes. Which suggests they aren't confident of forcing a win : in truth it is hard to see even England getting shot out twice in the remaining time so I guess it matters little. And I doubt England will be able to achieve parity today and then skittle Pakistan to set up a last session chase so presume we are going to be just playing out time ...but it is a Test Match so beats doing crossword puzzles...

Good knock for Rizwan

This is not going to be fun to bat in. If I am batting 4/5/6 I am hopefully looking for rain...

Short and uncomfortable stay for Burns...

The start Pakistan wanted.

Very optimistic review ...Shaheen getting overexcited. Reckon that probably pitched outside leg , was missing the stumps , and he hit it...so not a lot going for it

But this is looking like a tough session for the batsmen...

Hi Alfie and all - however you look at it, this Test has been heading for a draw for some time. Therefore, probably not really significant what Pakistan chose to do today. I can though understand and indeed support Pakistan in batting on this morning. An annoying 20 or so minutes for England adding to the frustrations of Burns and Sibley.

My man Alec Stewart normally advises against declaring overnight as that gives the opposition openers longer (? 20 minutes) to prepare for their dig than the 10 minutes when play for the day has commenced. It should also be noted that you can sometimes take more wickets in a partial session than a whole one.

Anyway, it hasn't done Pakistan any harm so far. Burns gone in the first over and could have even gone first ball. Decentish shout against Crawley too, I thought.

alfie wrote:Very optimistic review ...Shaheen getting overexcited.  Reckon that probably pitched outside leg , was missing the stumps , and he hit it...so not a lot going for it

But this is looking like a tough session for the batsmen...

My first thought was that it was umpire's call on pitching outside leg and so the review was not going to be successful but was not convinced Crawley got a touch despite the technology suggesting otherwise.

Simon Mann on TMS, "England need 37 to avoid the follow on".

guildfordbat wrote:

alfie wrote:Very optimistic review ...Shaheen getting overexcited.  Reckon that probably pitched outside leg , was missing the stumps , and he hit it...so not a lot going for it

But this is looking like a tough session for the batsmen...

My first thought was that it was umpire's call on pitching outside leg and so the review was not going to be successful but was not convinced Crawley got a touch despite the technology suggesting otherwise.

I'd have appealed if I'd been bowling

But it really didn't look right to me , even if there wasn't an edge. Nasty ball to get first up though !

The way the ball has moved about , I do wonder if Pakistan might have got more out of another seven overs or so bowling , rather than messing about batting - though I do generally agree with Stewart , and your good self about the merits of annoying the opening batsmen.

The way the weather is treating them it all seems academic : I thought today was supposed to be the "good" day ?

Do hope it improves next Friday.

Meant to be raining until mid afternoon, to be honest they could probably shake hands on a draw now and save everyone the effort

The only good thing from this test for either side is for Pakistan that their seamers have essentially had another week off, so should be fine to go for that third test

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Meant to be raining until mid afternoon, to be honest they could probably shake hands on a draw now and save everyone the effort

The only good thing from this test for either side is for Pakistan that their seamers have essentially had another week off, so should be fine to go for that third test

Always supposing the wretched weather is "fine to go" too  

Suppose if England bat out the game from here then more or less the same goes for their bowlers...

Really disappointing after that excellent first match that this one is such a damp squib. Had assumed playing down south would be less bothered by rain than Manchester , but anything but.  Then again I was staying not too far from Southampton for about four days last September and it rained all the time so shouldn't have been too surprised !

Play abandoned for the day. Common sense would allow the umpire to call the whole game off now, but no they have to go through the motions tomorrow.

Not even a Cronje-like declaration deal can save this game with more adverse weather predicted tomorrow.

Start delayed again today after a storm overnight - why are they even bothering at this point? Just call it off as a draw.

Also...there is meant to be a storm hitting the UK the back end of this week/early next week...which if it comes to fruition, doesn't bode well for the 3rd test either!

A waste of time even bothering today, got to feel slightly sorry for Burns who is going to have another low score despite it meaning nothing.

Only in cricket would the officials be bothering with something as futile as this. Five inspections today, just so a few meaningless overs might be played.

Its a complete farce. After day 3 there was no chance of an out come. Just call it a day and hope the weather is good for the next test...

So play starts at 3.20, can just see one of Pakistans fast bowlers pulling up.

Time for some part time medium/spin for an hour

If England avoid the follow-on, I reckon the game is just about safe.

Don't think we need to go much longer here

Chance for Sibley and Crawley to notch up a 50 each and boost their averages in zero risk circumstances, such things will be forgotten in three months when evaluating their records.

I hardly think facing abbas and co on a cloudy day with the new ball is an ideal time to be padding averages.
I'm sure those whove made up their minds on players will find an adequate way to express the statistics to back up their opinions whatever they are anyway.

Bit of much needed time in the middle and a confidence booster for Crawley even if its meaningless in game terms you can be sure both teams will be wanting to make as much of a psychological mark as they can on the opposition. Crawley should benefit from a decent innings in trying circumstances, hes not spent a great deal of time at the crease this summer.

Its not like we're seeing Pakistan wrap the quicks in cotton wool and bowl salad at them. Fancy theyd love tonget root cheaply and put a little more pressure on his form.

Why haven’t they just called this off by now

Can't shake hands until 6 apparently

Bit of a nail-biter, but the draw was secured in the end.

Crawley's valiant effort on par with Atherton's in Joburg or Collingwood's in Cardiff.

On we go to Friday.

GSC wrote:Can't shake hands until 6 apparently

Cant do that at all as we learnt from the first test gaff!

In the end Root was able to take the offer of protecting his and Buttlers averages ( ) in a socially distanced way

So onto the next test on Friday...should imagine both teams go in unchanged? Unless England think it isn't going to swing, and then maybe need one of Archer/Wood in the side to offer some extra pace.

Bit of a shame from their point of view, ideally would've liked to have wrapped up the series in the 2nd test, then could've given the likes of Robinson a debut...

A potential bolter that could come into England contention if they want pace. George Garton. He's had his injury problems since getting called into England training squads very young but seems to be back bowling at his best with Sussex now.

He's not played many pro games so he's still raw but he's quick, offers the left arm angle and can bat so a lot to like for the selectors.

England aren't going to be looking at anyone outside the existing group for the time being. Suspect wood or archer will come into the side.
One option is that Bess could be considered surplus to requirements. Englands only issue on the bowling front this summer has been letting innings drift with the older ball and tailenders not being rolled over as easily as they shouldve. The last test was a prime example where Pakistan got 50 more than they shouldve, and the way englands innings was going suggests the rain did them a favour in the end.
Leach offers a much better attacking threat than Bess, right arm offies are always going to struggle for wickets in England unless they bowl like Mo and go for runs. Or the quick could take his place and England just go all out seam. They've twice not used the spinner this summer.
Theres still the chance that Anderson or Broad might be feeling overworked having got through a lot of overs for one innings, but neithers going to let on if they are. Certainly no signs of fatigue/injury on the pitch.

Pakistan should drop Fawad Alam just to troll his supporters. But realisticly aren't going to change their side.


Forecasts better for this weekend but still likely to be a fair bit of disruption to the game. Hoping for a fitting end to an absorbing summer.

I lean towards going with the same XI , assuming conditions are not going to be remarkably different , as I think it gives the best (least worse?) balance of batting/bowling possible without Stokes.
Options I suppose : if they really think they need extra pace then the call for Archer to be included will grow louder (though for pure pace it really ought to be Wood). Trouble then is who drops out : provided they are not overly fatigued Anderson and Broad still look the most dangerous bowlers ; Woakes (who has been in great form anyway , although he just might be showing the effects of overwork judging from his bowling in the most recent game) and Curran provide - necessary - batting cover for a somewhat fragile order ; and the same is true to a point of Bess - who also gives the spin option that is sure to be needed as soon as it is no longer available

Important they get it right as this last game (which I suspect will go to a result (we surely can't have the same level of weather interruption twice running?) gives Pakistan a chance to get their usual drawn series in England. They arguably had slightly the better of this one (meaningless though that is given the few actual overs bowled) and if they get the breaks I think they are dangerous.
They might dial back on the Fawad experiment

I want Fawad to get selected again just so I can marvel at the absurdity of his stance, almost as bad as George Bailey.

And I do note Goose's point re Leach. But he hasn't played for ages so I fear that might make his selection a bit too much of a risk .
Plus there's the batting to consider : Leach has done some heroic stuff but he isn't in the same class as Bess with the bat.

Some suggestions in the media they might have to use the same wicket as this game was played on, as the groundsman hasn't, and isn't going to get enough time with the weather to prepare a new pitch. Might bring the idea of an extra spinner into play, considering Yasir was already getting turn yesterday a fair bit.