And of course we haven't declared.
And of course we haven't declared.
Well now we should have bloody declared. I would have been fine with an immediate declaration on the 8th wicket, but what's the point of Broad and Anderson going out there?
It's fucking moronic.
There's barely any point in Broad getting his pads on when we actually need the runs, let alone when we're miles ahead.
Fucking declare you cowards.
Actually, let Broad hook Rabada for 6, and then declare before the next ball. That would make all this dilly-dallying worth it.
I was ok with the declaration. Faf signalled he had given up on the match ages ago when he bowled Maharaj all morning.
Currently a bit fascinated with the up and down votes on the BBC live text.
Who is even voting on these? Are they responding to what has been written or the event it's describing?
So many questions.
I am obsessed by them as well. I want to know the nature of the electorate. The clearest trend is that good news for England gets up votes and bad news for England gets down votes, but on the author's shite banter and people's texts in, things become far less clear.
One thing I have noticed is that any highlighted quotes by female commentators/analysts get a good chunk of downvotes regardless of their content. There's something about the existence of women pundits that really frustrates a fairly large tranche of people.
I find the cricket ones I've seen or listened to pretty good. Alex whatserface on all the football ones isn't even close to the worst football ones. As you say, a woman's voice just gets certain unnecessarily angry.
To be fair my mum has always bitched about basically any female newsreader or sports pundit she sees.
This got zero votes of either flavour. Chilling stuff.Denly is withdrawn in favour of Dom Bess' off-spin, now turning the ball in to the right-handers, hoping to create indecision around off stump. Hamza isn't what you'd call a picture of certainty, an inside edge almost having the short leg field interested. There are 20 overs left in the day.
Feels better getting that extra wicket before the close there. Should still be good to get this done tomorrow and hopefully get Jimmy more involved.
I see that Hameed has moved county. Any real chance that he's going to get back to where he was? It'd be nice to have options for opener so if more injuries happen or one of Burns / Sibley don't work out to not have to resort to Keaton Fucking Jennings.
KFJ will play in Sri Lanka. Hameed has been fully broken for about two years, time will tell if a move to Notts will do the trick.
Weren't we in Sri Lanka touring last winter? Seems strange to have another one scheduled for the following year.
Nooooooo. If he does better because those are more his conditions then fucking Ed Smith is going to go "OH SHIT IT'S WORKING!!!" and we'll be back where we were. Looking at his subcontinent scores on Cricinfo it's very shit or bust. Ten innings, two centuries, one fifty, a near-fifty and then six sets of absolute shite.Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd
Cheers, Faf.
It did sound from the live text like the nerves were getting to South Africa a bit with a couple of iffy shot choices.
That's more like it. Was worried Malan would hang around for ever (not a concern I ever had with Dawid.)
This sort of scenario is where our old mate Jofra would come into his own.
Sounds like Denly is getting the ball to do a fair bit.
That seems to be a wicket apiece off two deliveries of absolute filth that we've served up.
I wish I was at home watching this.
If we draw because we run out of time to take this last wicket I'm going to find out who wanted to keep batting yesterday and burn their house down.
Stokes is approaching folk legend status now.
I've done the square root of fuck all today in work because I've been constantly refreshing and listening where I can to this. What an amazing effort from Stokes AGAIN to drag us over the line.
Perfectly timed declaration, and we got to see the majesty of Broad at the crease too.
I thought the declaration was fine. If this South Africa team batted 150+ overs then fair fucks.
Stokes' morning assault yesterday proving crucial in that regard.
Buttler calling Big Vern a knobhead and then telling the bowler to 'bowl it past his fucking gut' is well worthy of the MBE he got last week.
Is that what he's said?
Stokes bloody thrives on the big moments.
Not often I get to say this nowadays, but lol at India.
Australia thumped India by 10 wickets in the first ODI.
Seeing the cricket has started has just broken my dream from last night.
I was at somebody's house (not one I recognise so I'm not sure whose) and Jofra Archer and Jos Buttler were in the back garden playing about with a cricket set for kids. I wanted to go and join in but I was too busy helping with dinner in the kitchen.
Also this has started well so far.
The pitch seems completely dead though. Hopefully it provides something as the match progresses because it could really peter out into a bore draw.
Do either of these batting line-ups really have it in them to bat out a bore draw though? Calamity is only ever an over away for both.
We were only 8 overs away from one on a surface that offered more (for the first 3 days at least) in the last Test.
If anybody can make this look like a minefield at some point, England can.
This looks Nagpur-tier from the few clips I have seen. Proper shitheap. Won't even get to see MS Dhoni run himself out for 99 here either.
I think it would have been unfair to categorise the last test as a 'bore draw' had SA batted out. Cardiff when Jimmy and Monty made their stand was hardly a boring game, but yeah, this does look a bit dead. Hopefully it deteriorates massively. We've definitely got it in us to spaz our way to a plucky 300 first innings effort before being ground into the dust and scoreboard pressured in the 3rd innings.
We need to bat most of tomorrow, no doubt about that. Just to annoy them if nothing else.
Ahhh, an opener getting in and then lobbing his wicket away. Lovely. This is England.
It sounds like Crawley was very, very obviously being set up for that and has walked right into it.
Is chasing it down the leg side our new "wafting at filth that's wide of off stump"?
Batsmen are programmed to tuck away anything on leg stump so it's a bit harder to be disciplined there.
Following at work and watching us getting tantalisingly close to the sub 2rpo innings run rate is keeping me distracted.
Should be a big one for Root here.
He tends to bat well on these decks so here's hoping he doesn't run out of partners. Can see Stokes chucking in a now-trademark 4* (60) start too.
They'll be through us by the close here.
Top recovery in the end from Stokes and Pope. I really hope England don't ruin Pope - he's fantastic to watch with some lovely strokes, and he seems to have a calm temperament, perfect for the Test environment. I could easily see him in this middle order for the next decade.
He's a beauty. Just oozes class. I thought Maharaj would butcher us then but he just ran out of steam. We still want 400 really but it's more about batting time. We have two thoroughbreds in our attack and of the three workhorses, two are kids. I bet Root and Denly end up bowling loads of overs.
Oof.Rabada banned for fourth Test
Big news.
South Africa bowler Kagiso Rabada has been banned for the fourth Test after picking up a demerit point for his celebration of the wicket of Joe Root yesterday.
I'm a bit torn on this one. I hate it when players scream in dismissed batsmen's faces (Jimmy Anderson and Mitchell Starc are also repeat offenders) but we don't need to be dishing out bans for it. Just make him wear a stupid hat all day or something.
Stokes.
It's a great innings and all but he's thrown it away at the end there (and tried to several times before that).
I feel 'thrown it away' is a particularly harsh term for a batsman who has made 120 and shared a 200 run partnership for your team. If he'd made a classy 25 and then wafted a wide one to cover (aka Vinced it), then fair enough. As it is, he's set the stage for Pope to (hopefully) get his first 100 and for Buttler and Curran to accelerate before tea.
Ok, scratch Buttler from my previous post.
Here we go.
All out for 400 now. Should have been coasting to 500+. He did throw it away. Don't make me break out the Goochology.
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