Cricket

[Rover the Top]

Good job we added those extra 200 runs...

It's still a good win in a match England dominated from start to finish. And that's with two of the seamers being non-entities. Cook will be relieved to have finally got some runs, Ballance seems to have settled nicely into the team and it was a great debut for Buttler. It's a bit perplexing how India managed to lose 7 wickets to part time spinners in that 2nd innings, though.

[Ethiaa]

Good job we added those extra 200 runs...

It's still a good win in a match England dominated from start to finish. And that's with two of the seamers being non-entities. Cook will be relieved to have finally got some runs, Ballance seems to have settled nicely into the team and it was a great debut for Buttler. It's a bit perplexing how India managed to lose 7 wickets to part time spinners in that 2nd innings, though.

Good job for Root who batted himself into a little bit of form. Good job for Cook who continued to sort his batting out. Good job for the bowlers who got a bit of a longer break and might have struggled to bowl so well last night without the extra break

[Rover the Top]

Yep, that extra break made all the difference to the tired fast bowlers, particlarly last night. Broad = 0 wickets. Jordan = 0 wickets. Woakes = 0 wickets. Anderson picking up his two this morning. We could have got it all over with yesterday and given them an extra day to recover before the next test...

[Ethiaa]

Could? What's the point of could. Broad could have broken down even more leaving us in trouble if Jimmy does get banned today. India could have rallied and actually scored well on what was a decent pitch. You wanna think you COULD have been right? lol

[Rover the Top]

It's better than claiming the bowlers bowled better with an extra break when they were actually pretty rubbish and were saved by the part-timers...

[Ethiaa]

That at least has the benefit of having evidence to back it up - also they didn't bowl poorly at all

Not taking wickets doesn't mean they were bowling badly.

[Rover the Top]

Anyone following the Middlesex v Lancashire County Championship game? The match will decide who is relegated from the first division. To stay up, Lancashire need to win and score at least 3 more bonus points than their opponents. Middlesex surprisingly chose to bat first, and were bowled out for 214, giving them 1 batting point and Lancashire the maximum 3 bowling points. Lancs clawed their way to 259 for 6 at the close of play last night, giving both sides another 2 points each. That meant that this morning, Lancs needed to score another 41 runs off 14 overs and could only lose 2 wickets, otherwise they'd be relegated. They lost two wickets for just twelve runs, but then fought to needing 7 runs off the 110th over to get to 300 and secure the extra batting point. Chapple hit the first ball for 6 and then followed it with a 3 to score the bonus point. So now they've sensibly declared on 302-8, and have now got to finish the job off...

[theadore]

De Villiers vs. West Indies...

[Rover the Top]

I know England are a poor ODI side at the moment, but I can't find the word to describe how bad their performance this morning was...

123 all out and chased down in 12.2 overs. Finn slogged for 49 off just 2 overs. Afghanistan and Scotland will fancy their chances against such an incompetent side.

[mrblackbat]

I don't understand why Finn still gets near an International team.

[Rover the Top]

They're that badly broken, I don't know where they begin trying to fix things. If Finn doesn't play, they can only pick someone else who isn't up to the job either.

[mrblackbat]

I'm not sure that's true. The continuing overlooking of Graham Onions has been baffling and rather than play Finn who we know is no good, we could try a youngster.

[Rover the Top]

[theadore]

After a tiresomely slow bore fest against a very poor Scotland, England appear to have started the collapse.

[Rover the Top]

After a tiresomely slow bore fest against a very poor Scotland, England appear to have started the collapse.

England 303-8 Scotland 184 a.o.