Cricket

Worth it to troll MV, in my view.

That's made me feel better.

Turned it on the Root goes next ball. FFS.

Huh.

we're in
we're out
we're in again
oh no we aren't

I don't want to say it, but we'll have to work pretty fucking hard to lose this game from here.

Which knob said this ^

Time for JB to do what he does best.

other than get out.

What kind of target do we need to set here?

Any less than three hundred and it feels a bit slight?

Nice to see that Crawley is calmly stacking up runs as the shit meets the fan around him.

He's striking at 80 ish with very little drama.

#temptingfate

Feel like anything above 220 is decent, 250+ very good. Those cracks aren't going to get any easier to bat on

I'm sure i heard the commentators yesterday say that the highest total ever chased in first class cricket on this ground is 210, albeit that was achieved 5 down i think. Anything over 200 will be hard but you'd want 250+ from here

Listening to the wisden podcast last night i heard the story of how Bashir made the England team and it's insane (maybe everyone else already knows it, in which case apologise). He was let go by Surrey without playing for them and played amateur for Berkshire. Berkshire played Somerset and he took lots of wickets so they gave him a preseason trial, during which he played Essex and took 1-100. But, he bowled well at Cook and the county social media guy, who is an off spinner was impressed but also bored so he put together a quick Instagram reel of every ball he bowled to cook. Which stokes saw and shared to his WhatsApp with mccullum and key and said I want him in india, so even though he had a really average domestic season stokes made sure he went on the lions tour where he impressed and here he is playing against India. Captaincy based almost exclusively on vibes.

i didn't know that - crazy story!

This pitch is holding up so much better than predicted. I wonder if it will just fall off a cliff edge like a formula one tyre.

India nearly needed a DRS on their decision to take the review there.

Funny old game

Can Stokes make it to double figures?

Ah...

Where are we getting 50 more runs from?

Sigh

…. not Bairstow !

Nowhere

What is he DOING?

Thank God for gloves

Nowhere

sadly, this.

Not sure about England's one run an over, and overly-protective of Bashir, strategy.

Runs are priceless on this pitch