great stuff. Bairstow hits his ****ty test match average of mid 30s and gets away with it again. As wicket keeper i could understand but as a "batsman" he is a limited overs man. I really like the guy but he is not a test match middle order batsman. Maybe he needs to go big and attacking? anyway. alli and pope and baristow standing there for a while have done us wonders. Woakes might even add some runs and then its the guys who you just don't want the ball to hit. A 100 lead here would be interesting heading for day 5. I think this pitch will go quickly once it hits a certain level of wear so the longer we bat here maybe it will go quick enough for us to hurt them?
Sigh. add 2 quick wickets to any score and see how bad it could be. When alli was in i thought 100 lead might even be possible. now we need a 50 stand with pope and woakes Guess it'll be less as new ball is coming up as well. Now add 2 quick wickets and 50 would be a good lead. India got a "new" ball off the umpires and get a wicket, hate that.
Well after being 60-5 decent come back from middle order to get a lead. If can get that lead over 100 then sets us up wel for second innings.
Good knock from Woakes, not sure why they were desperate for that single unless it was to keep Woakes on strike, can't remember Pope batted well but should've pushed on for 100 Ali and Bairstow offered something but it was limited and only meh The rest of the batting was fairly or really pathetic. Root gets a pass, and not counting the bowlers in that either
India are well on top of this now. Great batting pitch, Rohit and Pujara are well in and the ball's doing absolutely nothing.
The lead is 155 with 7 wkts. remaining. As this gets closer to 200 India become favourites, bloody great test this.
