England Tour of India

Superb from Pope especially given the conditions and state of the game.

I doubt anyone would have been surprised to see them just fold in the 2nd innings but they've managed to get into a position where they still have a slim chance. Whatever happens the batting line-up at least should take confidence from this match.
 
After a late night was expecting to wake with the match finished. I guess England will still lose handsomely but at least they are competitive some what.
 
This is a top knock. This will bring more doubts in Indian set up as england win or lose will play a fearless cricket. Also, Indian batting is a suspect so you never know.
 
Heck of an effort from England and Pope, never thought he had that in him in these conditions.

Leach busting his knee might kill any momentum England get from today, for the rest of this test and this series potentially. England need to have a bit of a reckoning with spin bowling, the cupboard being bare is one thing but even the approach to selection with focus on release points and pace shows there’s a lot of work to be done on how we understand the craft of spin bowling in this country. Even a lot of the wickets we took with spin, getting caught going for a big shot, that’s T20 bowling, not test bowling.

The entire mindset to spin bowling is wrong in England. We don’t create pitches that encourage it, we actively penalise teams who do encourage it and we have captains and coaches that don’t understand it and refuse to persist with it.
 
JohnnyKills said:
Agree.

England should be looking at this as a development tour. Get some experience into Hartley, Bashir and Rehan so they can come back in four years. Things could look very different then.

Who will take over from Ashwin and Jadeja? Is there anyone waiting in the wings?
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Well they have Axar who is groomed to be a jadeja replacement but I still think that will be hard.

Kuldeep will play more once ashwin retires.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
If a batsman wants to switch hit they should actually force the bowler to bowl with their weaker hand IMO.
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I said tongue in cheek after the day on Twitter that if we got a few flat tracks people might want switch hit banned but little did I know that Mr Bhogle was already on it
 
That’s completely idiotic, you can’t compare switch hitting to bowling with a different hand. Switch hitting is fine and adds to the game and skills.
 
Great innings by Pope! Hopefully they can add at least another 100 to the total tomorrow. Will be a good game then
 
Brilliant innings from Pope hopefully it's given England's batsmen confidence going forward for the rest of the series.As for this match another 80 would certainly make it interesting,whether the bowlers are upto it Is debatable.

Still, I expected England to get rolled over 2nd innings so it's nice to see them showing some fight.Interesting session tomorrow morning.
 
MDFC Manager said:
Great innings by Pope! Hopefully they can add at least another 100 to the total tomorrow. Will be a good game then
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I want a good game as well but not too good. I think anything above 150 gives England a real chance of a win.

Th pitch has been great but it has also had some variable bounce today.

England have been very good and I have been watching today thinking that with decent bowling, we'd be in real trouble this match/series.
 
zing said:
I want a good game as well but not too good. I think anything above 150 gives England a real chance of a win.

Th pitch has been great but it has also had some variable bounce today.

England have been very good and I have been watching today thinking that with decent bowling, we'd be in real trouble this match/series.
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Agreed. For this match in particular, I'd already be worried if they had played Anderson for example.
 
Think Root will need to essentially hold down an end for the entirety of India's final innings, whenever that might be.
 
Our bowling attack looks horrendous, and now Leach is most likely out, who will they find to replace him?

There must have been bowlers ahead of the likes of Hartley, Ahmed, and Bashir who were asked about their availability but just didn't fancy it.
 
LDUred said:
Our bowling attack looks horrendous, and now Leach is most likely out, who will they find to replace him?

There must have been bowlers ahead of the likes of Hartley, Ahmed, and Bashir who were asked about their availability but just didn't fancy it.
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As said previously, this is a development tour for our young spinners. Anything else is a bonus.
 
zing said:
I want a good game as well but not too good. I think anything above 150 gives England a real chance of a win.

Th pitch has been great but it has also had some variable bounce today.

England have been very good and I have been watching today thinking that with decent bowling, we'd be in real trouble this match/series.
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Yeah. Hopefully India know we're serious now.

Think Hartley and Wood will be big threats when we bowl.
 
Remember all of us saying indias shitty shots in the first innings could cost us. Here we are.
We have been terrible in bowling 2nd innings for a while now.

We should have crushed them and we might end up losing now.
 
Bit mad if they can surpass the Indian first innings total.
 
I'm in disbelief watching this.

And the Windies have the Aussies in trouble too.

Great test cricket.
 
Utd heap said:
I'm in disbelief watching this.

And the Windies have the Aussies in trouble too.

Great test cricket.
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I’ve just switched over to the windies game. Generally don’t like watch the tail bat in tests. That game is coming to a conclusion though and looking good. Shamar Joseph looks a bowler.
 
Hartley out = bad

The ball that got him out = good

(For England).
 
Above 250 I reckon we had a real chance. Fantastic effort, let's hope we can atleast scare India a bit with the ball.
 
The broadcaster/cameraman has been incredibly awful here. It’s ridiculous the amount of time that’s spent focusing on spectators. There’s more time spent on them than showing the actual game.
 
I was just relieved to see England get past the innings defeat and day three defeat markers. I didn't expect Pope to make a game of it.

India still favourites after our bowling in the first innings, but still...
 
Windies do the Aussies then Hartleyitharan takes two in three balls.

What a fecking five minutes.
 
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