1st Test, Edgbaston, Birmingham

[flibbertyjibber]

To be fair to Joe, he's not the sharpest tool in the box. He could do with some help.

Didn't someone earlier desribe it as Craptaincy.

I did, he is like Cook in that he does it by the book and has no other plan if it doesn't work.

 

[Burgey]

What ?

Not done loads. Smith has done a Smith and only other bloke to fight got runs. Rest were pathetic.

We’ll see how easy it is to bat on tomorrow. Said early on 250 is enough, 275-300 has Australia in front by a fair bit. It’s going to rag late. It’s really dry. Look at the footmarks on day one.

 

[Groundking]

You just know that it's going to be ****ing years until we take the captaincy from Root and wasted his peak because of it.

We should just give the captaincy to Buttler.

 

[vcs]

Australia inching ahead now. They should actually make sure they get bowled out with 5-6 overs to go lol, guaranteed they pick up 2-3 wickets tonight in this type of situation.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Lyon will love bowling on this

 

[trundler]

Looks like they'll get to 300 and Smith will get 150. Would be nice. Run rate over 6 for the last 10.

 

[Spark]

It was, however, bowlers tend to be fresher when they’re defending 300-400 rather than 150 odd

India batted first at Melbourne no? That ended up being the decisive Test.

 

[Groundking]

I did, he is like Cook in that he does it by the book and has no other plan if it doesn't work.

Cook wasn't ever this bad so consistently though tbf.

 

[Burgey]

I did, he is like Cook in that he does it by the book and has no other plan if it doesn't work.

He’s a bIt stiff losing Anderson. Wouldn’t have banked on broad bowling 20 plus day one and Stokes having to bowl as many. Stokes is a handy bowler but he’s no Anderson.

Certainly agree these fields with nine blokes out is woeful though. There isn’t 500 on the board

 

[flibbertyjibber]

We’ll see how easy it is to bat on tomorrow. Said early on 250 is enough, 275-300 has Australia in front by a fair bit. It’s going to rag late. It’s really dry. Look at the footmarks on day one.

Well we will but there are no real demons in this track.

 

[Burgey]

India batted first at Melbourne no? That ended up being the decisive Test.

Yea they did. And iirc the bowlers were back out there pretty sharpish instead of having their feet up for two days, but I’m not 100% and cbf looking it up at 3:30 am.

Shot Lyon.

 

[trundler]

Smith now has over half the runs in the innings, lol.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

He’s a bIt stiff losing Anderson. Wouldn’t have banked on broad bowling 20 plus day one and Stokes having to bowl as many. Stokes is a handy bowler but he’s no Anderson.

Certainly agree these fields with nine blokes out is woeful though. There isn’t 500 on the board

Not helped by Stokes bowling utter garbage all day I guess. He hardly bowled in World Cup either, might be carrying an injury or just has no form but he looks way off it.

 

[vcs]

Yeah a bit harsh to be overcritical given he's a bowler short today. Don't rate his captaincy too highly in general though, there were plenty of passages of play against WI where it was... questionable to say the least. That massive partnership between Holder and Dowrich springs to mind.

 

[Groundking]

Well we will but there are no real demons in this track.

Doesn't need demons in it with how **** our batting is.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Sanga buying into the express bowler nonsense too.

 

[Burgey]

Not helped by Stokes bowling utter garbage all day I guess. He hardly bowled in World Cup either, might be carrying an injury or just has no form but he looks way off it.

Yeah Stokes been ordinary from the get go. First spell was trash and hasn’t got much better

 

[Burgey]

Fmd this **** is taking the piss.

It’s not good for england having Broad bowling this many day one of a series so jam packed, but they haven’t had a choice I suppose

 

[Spark]

Yea they did. And iirc the bowlers were back out there pretty sharpish instead of having their feet up for two days, but I’m not 100% and cbf looking it up at 3:30 am.

Shot Lyon.

Oh yeah but only after they’d conceded like three thousand runs in the first dig. Game was basically done by then.

 

[Spark]

Sanga buying into the express bowler nonsense too.

Surely it’s really quite obvious who they would like to have been bowling and who probably would have been useful at wrapping up the innings. They did, after all, pick him to play.