Pretty depressing. A few hours ago they were struggling to get to 150, now I'm dreading is going out to bat tonight as they go past 300...
284 all out. Smith's innings has certainly put pressure on England but I expect our batting to settle and score runs.
Yep, pretty much. Went to Surrey vs Middx at the Oval in April. When I got home, my son asked me who won and before I could answer, said “I don’t suppose it matters much”. Which it didn’t, to me. It’s nice when England win though. At any sport, it’s not like it happens often enough to ever get boring.
Piss poor that. Having them completely on the rack with 8 down and allowing them to get to nearly 300 is bollocks.
I don’t think that changed anything in France mate. If anything, racial and economic divides have got worse since then.
I meant within French football and particularly within the national team. Sadly the financial crash scuppered any progression in the real world.
There is so much for the likes of Burns and Denly to prove tomorrow. Roy is what he is, if he goes early everyone will accept that but one of the other two needs to get at least a 30 or 40. Our batting below Denly should be able to put games to bed - Stokes, Buttler, Bairstow, Ali, Woakes - are a ridiculously gifted list of batsmen to be coming in and 7 to 9 in particular could easily be batting a couple of places higher up in most teams. Even Broad at 10 (as damaged as he is nowadays with his batting) is good for that position. If we can get a start, even just near to 100 before the 3rd wicket goes down then we should get a lead. Realistically we need one, batting last we want 30-40 run lead just to be at par. Anything less and we're behind the game, anything more and we're ahead. That means 315+. I doubt we'll get to that...
Smith will get all the plaudits, but he needed a partner. For me, I thought Siddel was player of the day.
It's true Sweats, sorry. OK maybe 25 years was too much, make it 20 So-called best test series... where the host nation usually wins. Except a period in the 90's for the Aussies but not us.
You’re right about the effect of moving to Sky. Absolutely terrible decision by the ECB, taken in 2005 after the greatest test series for decades.