What is the point of persevering with the obviously failed experiment of Taylor at six?..we are ahead of the game but too many dot balls puts unnecessary pressure on the run chase.
A bit like Topley before him, I thought Wood bowled better than his figures suggest. Not a great opening over from him, but decent enough after that. Can't say that the other bowlers were really anything of note though. Good to see Jimmy score some runs. We do something from the middle order, we can't rely entirely on the top three. They've been great for us between them so far in these three games, but a time will come when they do all fail (plus, at the very end of the group stage - plus the KO matches if we get there - we will have to deal without Amla). So Adams getting a score was good. Taylor really did look very out of his depth; fortunately, Essex's fields to him were generally too defensive. RTD's captaincy didn't particularly impress me all round really; no real structure to who bowled when, just a lot of chopping and changing, and utilised Ravi far too late.
That is a tremendous result for Hampshire against the might of the County Champions. Team to beat in the group could be Surrey.
I should have said after the group matches have been completed. At the moment they are languishing. obviously was not paying full attention to Hampshire beating Surrey.
England 149-5 Cook bowled for 70. I take the blame...I was just thinking we were getting back into it.
I find Pakistan a really odd side - they have some of the most talented cricketers in the world yet are so brittle. Would love their batsmen to prove me wrong and put Anderson and Broad to the sword!!!
Tomorrow is a really critical day. England do have 3 world class players in their line-up, two of whom would walk into any test team in the world. Has the lower middle order been weakened with Moeen having been jettisoned for now? Just read the review on the BBC webpage, which highlighted the fact that England´s collective have managed to play less first class cricket that Pakistan, suggesting that England have entered the game undercooked.
I go to the BBC cricket page and find that my beloved Middlesex won!! Absolutely shocked that they have managed to win 3 in a row as the norm is 3 wins in total for a season in both the 50 over and 20 over format!! As for the test match, I am amazed that Pakistan have been so disciplined so far.
The ECB have treated the county championship like crap over the short over games, and they wonder why we are crap. Plus they don’t look outside of the big counties. Root isn’t captain material.
