The Cricket Thread 2015-16

Still 3 down with a small lead. Cook and Root need to do the business...hard task, but better than it looked before. Rain might help

 

Century for Cook and 50 for Stokes and, dare I say it, England building a healthy looking lead......

 

Stokes 93 from 78 balls....fantastic.

 

Stoked for Stokes 1 ton

 

Stokes fastest century at Lords

 

Just turned over in time for the straight drive to go to 99, and then the ton itself. Brilliant stuff, and it puts us in with a chance of winning this game.

 

Stokes has been the heir to Beefy and Freddie pretty much since the day he made his Durham debut.

 

The fastest test century in history at Lords .

 

Stokes gone.

 

A great knock. England lead by 230...wouldn't have thought that yesterday.

 

Jos Buttler could do with a ton as well...

 

Kiss of death... gone for 14.

 

Moeen Ali can score or can go quickly.

 

150 for Alastair Cook.

 

Shouldn't declare. Not enough runs.

 

If Alastair Cook gets another 43 runs tomorrow, he'll overtake Graham Gooch as the highest run-scorer for England.

 

Engand have got to be careful. They declare too early and McCullum goes mental it's all over by tea.

 

Cook is a cautious captain and I can't see him giving New Zealand a sniff. I would think his plan will be to bat til just before lunch and set the Kiwis 400 in about 2 sessions.

 

I can't see us getting anywhere close to that. We're one wicket away from being in the tail. So good luck to us adding 105 runs full stop, let alone 105 runs in just one session.

Quite possibly that we could be all out with the addition of less than 30 more runs.

 

Well of course there's no guarantee England will be able to get a lead of 400, I'm just saying I expect that's what Cook will want to do. It could go either way. Cook and Ali are capable of adding 100 runs themselves but England could also be bowled out very quickly. If England do bat through most of the session they should get a lead of 400 - nine of the twelve sessions so far in this match have seen 100 runs or more scored and two of the three that didn't were rain-affected.