All bets off now, your boys have opened Pandora's box, I'm hoping we cheat our way to victory in all remaining Tests.
Loved the football-esque chants of "Stand up if you hate Cummins" ringing round as he was plumb in front. Test cricket has become fun finally.
Modern Aussie cricket is built on the foundations of AB, Steve Waugh and "mental disintegration", so we love some good banter. I agree, this series is lots of fun. You know it's good when the uptight stiffs at Lord's get into the sledging as well.
Lucky we've got Moeen (and Woakes) in the team.
"poor piece of cricket from Ali" say the commentators.
Where's Mr Rave?
Amazed to check the score and find we're still batting.
Here, but still not well enough to fully engage - with Talkback or the cricket.
Broad looks fantastic right now. Some absolutely wicked deliveries.
Sorry to hear that Dave, hope you're on the up soon.
Very much hoping you improve quickly, and a lot Mr. Rave.
Like England.
I've also not been engaging with the cricket. I have no desire to see us fail to regain the ashes in England. Never mind be tonked 5-0.
Anyway, tennis is on (not that I've been watching it as I have several showers of shit to deal with).
Ooh Moeen promoted. Sacrificial lamb?
Not great for Moeen but definitely shielded Brook, who produced the goods. Great result.
Can’t believe Bairstow will play the next test.
He definitely needed more recovery time with Yorkshire, rather than being chucked straight back into tests.
Woakes gets Hazlewood as the last wicket with the score on 300 but fractionally overstepped. Now up to 317.
Got him eventually.
I'm all for a bit of new thinking in the game, but certain orthodoxies are there for a reason, such as not declaring when your best batsman is scoring for fun in the first innings, or bringing the field up on the fourth delivery to a better batsman to try and force a tailender to face the next over. Stokes clearly likes to do things just to go against convention; this probably cost the first test, and possibly leaked unnecessary runs in this innings.
1
...england playing the friday game, a day early.
Mooen joins the exclusive club of 3000 runs, 200 wickets:
stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;qualmin1=3000;qualmin2=200;qualval1=runs;qualval2=wickets;template=results;type=allround
(Stokes is three wickets short.)
