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Official Cricket Thread
- Thread starter crazy monkey
- Start date
- OT
Yeah they'll put England in with half an hour left today to see if they can nab a wicket or two.
Also im not sure England can bat a whole day at the moment. Lyon will be tough to face.
Also im not sure England can bat a whole day at the moment. Lyon will be tough to face.
BBC has grey clouds 27% chance of rain at 10/11am lessening to 19% at 1pm then improving throughout the afternoon below 10% through to clear skies in the evening
Yeah I agree that's what they should do but I suspect they won't.
I will be flabbergasted if Australia are still batting at stumps.
It's not even a case of being brave with armchair declarations, it's just what teams do all the time. Paine won't be bothered about the runs on the board, it's just about how much time they want to give themselves to take 10 wickets.
Just saw that Wade and Paine got out. Now I think we should see some aggressive play from the tailenders for the next 20 minutes or so which will result in them getting out and to a change of innings for the last half hour. Still not sure if they'll declare if they don't get out though. While it's a typical tactic, I feel this team is more defensive than Australia of the past. And this is Edgbaston after all.
England aren't gonna score 300+ on the 5th day to win in the first test of a series on this surface.
Even if they get close you can simply pack the offside field and hang the ball outside off stump and dry up the runs.
I know, I'm not suggesting they will. I'm just trying to explain what I think this Aussie side might be thinking and why they might not choose to declare to have a bowl. I'll be proven right or wrong in a few minutes.
Yeah they'll declare in the next over or two, should have happened when they hit a 350 lead tbh.
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My traditional British pessimism feels like AUS are going to win this match tomorrow and go 1-0.
Amazing turn around in the game. I suspect the English will be reminding the umps of the light pretty much every ball.
I'm not sure they'll be able to bowl much seam. But Lyon actually has a decent record with a new ball.
half six I think so enough time for half a dozen overs as long as it doesn't get too dark, which it might.
Enough time for a wicket or two at any rate.
I don't expect it but an England victory isn't impossible. The commentators have been saying all day that there's nothing in the pitch for bowlers (except for spinners) and Australia capitalised on that. But everyone seems to be assuming that England won't be able to.
It's way easier to hide the ball from the batsman in tests than in white ball cricket with field restrictions.
It has nothing to do with white ball cricket.
My point is that Australia made 363 runs today, and the "experts" seemed convinced that this was because the wicket has nothing in it for the bowlers.
England need to score 385 tomorrow on a wicket that may offer even less. That is not that different to 363.
Admittedly I don't think it will happen as I think England will play for the draw.
It has everything to do with it.
If England look like they might get close then Australia can just bowl miles outside offstump to a 7-2 field and dry up the run rate. England didn't do that because they were still trying to get wickets, if their main goal was to stop Australia scoring 300 in a day then they would have done that pretty comfortably.
Out of interest, did anyone interview Ali to find out what went wrong today?
I know either David Lloyd or Shane Warne believed it could be because of his confidence due to his batting performance.
No side is scoring almost 400 runs on day 5 of a test to win.
Won't happen. What's far more likely is that England fall apart and lose the match.
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Weather seems good too.
England needs the spirit of Geoff Boycott with them.
England should have been doing that. The pitch was slow - you weren't blasting quick wickets like the first innings yet they bowled with no discipline. Big mistake. Had they made the Aussies graft for runs they'd have less time to bat and likely a much lower target. Really poor for England - lost all discipline. And didn't have the attack to blast a team out in those conditions.
It's not far off the actual worst ever. Absolutely Terrible.
