hildreth?I think it was a bad decision but getting to watch Root again has soothed me totally. If Hales fails 4 more times is his place under threat? Or do we just have to pick him because we have literally no more batsmen?
Yes I am familiar with Manchester. yes I probably would have followed on. No it isn't Alastair's 'we're gonna have a bowl' moment; teams do this all the time.You're familiar with Manchester? Cloud forecast for the entirety of the remaining couple of days. Rain forecast both days.
England have been fortunate they've had as many overs as they've had, because a lot of umpires would have took them off for bad light around an hour ago. The fact that they didn't improves England's chances because it will probably be similarly murky the next couple of days. That itself could save England 20-30 overs.
Hypothetically there are nearly 200 overs left. But it's not beyond Manchester to wipe out a good chunk of those. A few forecasts I've looked at predict around 4 hours to be lost to rain.
Wednesday 3rd August at Edgbaston.So when's the next Test match starting? Can't wait to watch some cricket.
Next Test is well over a week after this one. Anderson and Stokes bowled comfortably more overs in an innings for Lancashire and Durham. This is a superfluous line of argument at best. I could say England would have knocked them over quicker by bowling again today and having more time off before the next match. It pales into complete insignificance when you consider how fraught with danger the forecast is for the next couple of days is.I absolutely would not have enforced the follow on with Anderson and Stokes literally having just recovered from injury. Plus sticking a few more overs into the legs and arms of the Pakistani bowlers (particularly when Yasir bowled close to 60 overs in the first innings) is a good move, assuming Mrs Shah hasn't brought along her pills.
Really you think today he should have just been playing a normal test innings?Nah I'd rather someone like Hales try to play properly instead of just slog.
The mythology extends the other way too. Everyone blames Waugh's decision in Kolkata in '01 to enforce the follow-on for costing them series but it took a top-5 all-time Test knock and the bowling performance of a lifetime to prove it wrong.You are correct and the fact that England have enforced the follow on roughly half the time in the last few years says that's precisely the approach they take.
The main reason I get wound up is because it isn't an important decision, there are plenty of good reasons not to do it and you should enforce the follow on when you feel you need to, but not enforcing the follow on absolutely dominates discussion, and always without question draws criticism. It's get-on-with-it-itis, armchair psychology nonsense, jumping to rail against 'defensiveness' (even though the point of 'enforce to protect your top order wickets' is by far the most defensive suggestion I've heard today) and an extra helping of historical revisionism (Steve Waugh always enforced the follow on apparently).
What Cook's decision was not is ridiculous. There is enough logic in the decision to make it understandable at worst and reasonable at best.