Earlier the better tbf
Earlier the better tbf
Fuck off Crawley
They've publicly backed Crawley to hold down the spot forever. I think they're just going all in on everyone and frankly who can say they shouldn't run with it.
The problem with Crawley's situation is that there's nobody to come in. Even the Buttler opening train is gathering momentum because there's no alternative.
Virat Kohli's rapid recession to walking wicket status has been a most agreeable aspect of cricket in the last 12 months or so.
Oh fucking hell, have they got Shastri on Sky? Sign me up.
Shastri and Pietersen on together earlier, not far off the worst combo possible. They had to get the jaws of life to get them both out of Pant’s arsehole.
Getting a bit of counter-attack back from Pant and Jadeja. Feels bad man.
Shastri was genuinely pretty good back when the Verdict was still a thing. One of the India series they had him, Bob of course (RIP) and... somebody else, but I did actually like Shastri on it. A lot more considered and him and Willis had some interesting disagreements without it being the tedious football pundits having performative strops at each other.
I miss Bob.
He's a legend. I'm a total convert to his ways.
A quick scan of his twitter account reveals a man who is truly living his best life.
Exhibit A
This is quite a 180 Jimmy. When did you start to come around to him?
From pantomime villain to pantomime legend.
2014 Verdicts planted the seed that he might be alright actually, then I also have a very clear memory of (I think) Ebony Rainford-Brent telling a story about him packing her onto a speedboat in Bombay and showing her around his Scaramanga-esque private island. I can find absolutely no reference to the latter anywhere on the internet, but I'm absolutely convinced it happened. She called it 'Shastri Island' and everything.Originally Posted by Ian
This is quite a 180 Jimmy. When did you start to come around to him?
That sounds like a fever dream
Jimmy, you're among friends so you can be honest with us...... have you been writing Shastri / Rainford-Brent erotic fiction in between tractor engine sales?
And can we see it.
I wouldn't have just made that up. I don't have an imagination that fertile. I'm pretty sure Alan Wilkins was there as well.
Feels like every time I watch England let someone in the middle order rack up a century against them after a promising startZ
It happens every time you don't watch too, if that makes you feel any better.
Also that Broad over sounds like it was a laugh.
Real test of the new intent doctrine tonight.
I thought the Test had gone badly, then came back from my game to find out my club's 1s batted out 30+ overs for the draw after being 70/8 (50 odd overs in total), and the 16 year old who was one of the protagonists (4* off 84 balls) kept being told by the oppo close fielders that he was a faggot who takes it up the shitter.
Let's go fill in some forms!
a) what sort of sanctions get doled out for that sort of thing at your level?
b) Is the aforementioned protagonist actually gay? It doesn't matter either way because it's reprehensible homophobia I'm just curious as to whether this was bigotry because a gay person was mugging them off or homophobic bigotry because that is, so far as these idiots think, the worst slander going to the person who is mugging them off?
Also c) presumably the umpire must have heard at least some of that and are we to assume did nothing? I've no idea how much you hear from the other end of the pitch if the insults aren't being shouted.
Think Broad might be finished.
Was that right before the wicket, Max?
The rare reverse jinx
a) a lengthy ban, I hope
b) no, although they could have been
c) the umpires wouldn't have heard it.
I'm putting it down to the fact that the offender plays for a dual sport rugby/cricket club, and rugby culture is the fucking pits. Either that or he's just a cunt. Maybe both.
This is... a start.
The transformation of Alex Lees from crabbing beta in his debut tour to Matthew Hayden is interesting.
How are we 1.5 to win ffs
Cya zak
If we lose now from here (which we probably will) it feels a bit like Pickett's Charge. McCullum sacked by September, Peter Moores back for a third stint.
Idiotic from Root.
Was nice of Root to execute Lees.
Didn't Crawley dick Lees over as well in the last match? Or had Crawley not called the run on that and Lees basically did what Root did but fucked himself over?
OK - how much of this transformation is actually Baz's doing? Say on a scale of 1 to 10?
5 each for him and Stokes? Hard to say from the outside, but it's the same shitty players as before so it must be a vibe switch / mental awakening that you can only put down to one or both of them.
I'm going to claim they're both kiwis, so 100% NZ win then.
A long-running theme in English sport is that we need outside influence to get us out of our habitually conservative ways.
Now, I'm going to dredge up all the twitter replies from crazed Indian fans when people were lolling about us chasing 378 twenty-four hours ago.
Even so, this has been a lot of fourth innings runs even if this one still somehow goes horribly wrong.
I don't know what other teams there have been who just casually knock off big fourth innings chases as a matter of course, how (from this very small sample size) do England appear to be comparing?
It surely can't be as simple as just telling people to try and score runs even when it's typically meant to be tougher.
I know the pitch and ball have done bugger all here but England (and other teams) have fucked up in forgiving fifth day conditions before.
There have been none. It's a rewriting of all the rules. Normally Lees and Crawley go out yesterday thinking 'oh shit don't want to get out early'. With this management they go out thinking we're going to be 100/0 in 20 overs, and we are.
They look like they could chase about 550 if they wanted to.
I keep waiting for reality to catch up with us and for 5 to go down for 8 runs.
This is staggering. How have we managed this?
lol fuck off India.
That was absolutely absurd.
Piece of piss. Need to absorb salty Indians on twitter now.
Just the 269 run partnership to win it. In 52.3 overs. Didn't even get to the 2nd new ball.
This really nails it. The amount of chases we looked like we were petrified to get towards because we wanted to bat time and hope we could knock the runs out.
I know this is obvious but Root is an incredible player.
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