The Cricket Thread

Root gone for 3!

 

Root and Pope gone has surely put this firmly in New Zealand’s favour. And made an England win the least likely result

 

NZ will be very nervous about Stokes.

 

Fuller's getting his T20 batting practice in.

 

And this is an excellent example of how dangerous the Hampshire tail is.

 

A draw is obviously the favourite by a mile at the Bowl now but I now think a Hants win is more likely than a Yorks win. More likely we bowl them out and chase the target than Yorks getting far enough ahead to declare and then bowl us out.

 

Well batted Kyle. Now Fuller should just tee off completely.

 

Why take a single there?

 

Hants 410 all out. Got to be happy with that. Now can we put some pressure on with the new ball?

 

Apart from the top 2, everyone made good contributions with the bat.

 

It's a nice feeling that any team will have to bowl extremely well to run right through our batting now. Having a batter at 7, two genuine all rounders at 8 and 9 and Kyle is hardly a bunny at 10 either. They can all score quickly too whatever the match situation which is a huge bonus.

 

I appreciate it's hardly the most pressing issue right at this moment, but watching these first two tests under McCullum and Stokes, it's very hard to envisage Moeen and Buttler not getting another chance at some point.

Similar to when Morgan and Bayliss took over the ODI team, it just feels like the shackles are off. And Moeen and Buttler could thrive (at last).

 

Definitely getting that impression now...

 

That comment's aged well.

 

Ridiculous century.

Utterly amazing, utterly ridiculous.

 

Shame he didn’t get the record,

 

It's not even been luck. Just clean, brutal hitting.

 

This is reminiscent of the great Windies team of the 70/80s, a quite superb run chase.

 

Won't see many bigger 6s than that

 

Is this really a 5th day pitch? amazing Test Match batting!