In fairness to Curran he's a bowling all rounder who plays all forms of the game. He bats that way in all forms. His use is a a swashbuckling counterpuncher in test cricket. Bairstow should know better as he has the ability to bat sensibly but just has those rushes of blood.
Poor effort from the tail again. Only need 209. Don't think thats enough given the pitch has had less play than a typical game approaching 4th innings, Going to need a super human effort from the bowlers or India to absolutely bottle it. Or we all start doing a rain dance!
There's only been 3 successful Test chases over 208 at Trent Bridge. The last one was 17 years ago. This game is in the balance. Subcontinent batters facing English bowlers in cloudy conditions will make for an exciting chase. I hope it doesn't rain because whoever wins this will have earned it. If India get through to close relatively unscathed then they'll be slight favourites I reckon
but as for curran, he added a quick fire few but he' playing test match cricket and should adapt accordingly, he and robinson could have quite easily added another 40/50 batting smart leaving a decent chase for the bowlers to defend i like all formats of the game inc the tonne but someone needs to teach players to read the game, you don't need to slog in tests and even if the weather takes hold you make sure you don't give your wicket away our test batting is woeful as a team and can see a defeat in this series and the ashes should it go ahead
edit...on another note, i hope they don't panic pick brooks and put him under pressure like we used to do
I don't blame them. But it was a poor effort again. Take out Roots performance and highlights how abysmal the rest of the batting was. I thought India weren't as good with the ball 2nd innings. Even still, it's not a frightening Trent Bridge wicket. Fancy India to knock these off with only a couple down. But we can hope.
Strange anomaly of a statistic perhaps. Certainly fancy this to be 4. Need a couple of breakthroughs this evening.
Broad has that knack of bowling an unplayable wicket taking delivery in any situation. We might actually miss that more than Anderson's ability to move the ball when they both retire
that they will. If saying specifically the tail had made a poor effort isn’t apportioning blame I don’t know what is.
We’re going to lose because our top order can’t bat properly. That’s blame. Stating that our lower order didn’t chip in and do more than they did is just comment. Comment and blame are fundamentally different.
But that’s exactly what you didn’t do. You specifically mentioned the lower order as if it was somehow their fault. It clearly wasn’t. Top order runs and especially top order runs in the first innings will always be the key to winning test matches. we’ve a massive problem right now in the top 5. Only root is guaranteed a place, the others are much of a muchness, averaging 30 isn’t good enough but then if they are the best we currently have what else do we do The major problem of course is form and application, 2 or 3 of these cricketers are probably good enough if given the right preparation, 2 or 3 need to play county cricket properly on decent pitches. The ECB have given priority to white ball cricket for the past 5 years and here we are reaping those rewards, 2 aging great fast bowlers, no spinner and a top 5 who struggle more often than not. At least we have a world class all rounder
I think putting the blame on white ball cricket is giving the coaches a let off. Every country plays more white ball cricket now, and every country sees their best players go to IPL, and other leagues where the international calendar allows. What is trescothick doing with Sibley to give him any extra scoring options. What are they doing with Curran to define his role in the team? Add the treatment of players like Archer, and all the spinners, the Silverwood/Root era isn’t exactly going well.
Looks like rain may well save us today. Shame really cos it has the potential to be a belting day’s cricket.
