There will never be an England team in any sport, as good as this England white ball side. Privileged to watch them
interesting contrast between pakistan and south africa in this tournament. both played in group 2. south africa won 2 of their first 3 games and the other was a no result, giving them 5 points from 3 games. pakistan lost their first two games. it appears that south africa have a home reputations as "chokers" and they duly lost their last two games and didn't make the knockout round. pakistan won their last 3 group games and did qualify. the table changed completelu halfway through.
Be nice if we all could via the BBC, instead of all the wall-to-wall woman's football and rugby league.
i didn't enjoy the c4 coverage. some of it was okay but the endless need to fill the screen with something was irritating. suddenly finding endless unlabelled replays of all the wickets or the ball before the one before last or whatever without any clue is confusing and distracting. i guess it's what usa sports coverage is like. at least in the old days the beeb would add the word "action replay" to give us a clue.
I gave up watching with about 6 overs to go, took the dog for a walk and listened to Aggers on the radio. The pictures are much better.
Well done England. Solid all round team performance and played in a great spirit. Not my favourite form of the game but still take great pleasure in winning, especially away from home soil.
"Where the bowlers have followed through you can put your finger on a dark patch" MICHAEL ATHERTON Sky Sports
Just watched some highlights and it looked to be a very sparse crowd. Surprised me for the first day of a test vs England for 17 years.
also very much worth pointing out that england's record 506 first day runs came from only 75 overs when the daily norm is 90 overs in a day.. that's five sixths of the number of overs there should have been.
england took 14 off the first over. this made it the most expensive opening over of a test for something like 20 years. harry brook reached his century off 80 deliveries, the third quickest in england test history, just behind the 77 that put johnny bairstow in 2nd place earlier this year. crawley lagged behind somewhat - he took 86 to reach his 100. stokes was left on 34 runs off 15, so possibilities for day 2. the first maiden over was over 39. england took ten or more runs from 16 of the 75 overs, including four consecutive ones, from the 10th to the 13th. the most off an over came from the 68th, when harry brook hit fours off every delivery, making 24, and helping make it 28 deliveries from his 50 to his 100.
day 2, sesh 1 over 83: brook takes 6,4,4,4,6,3 off it. that's 27 runs. that's an england test record.
