To say the least. Always a hell of a lot of pressure on umpires in India, even more so that Kohli is under pressure and they were beaten handily in the first test. Are they neutral umpires? I can't recall if they said they were or weren't for this series.
Don’t think they are neural for this one. Toss was the key - we’ll never cope batting 4th if we get that far.
I don’t think any umpires are at present, are they? They would need to be flown around the world and that isn’t really feasible at present.
That's what I mean. The umpire washed his hands of the stumping because of a mysterious missing camera angle and then broke all DRS protocol by not reviewing the catch all the way through to the fielders hands. Which the shockingly biased commentary team glossed over and even criticised Mark Butcher for questioning. There's error and then there's really questionable umpiring. Cricket in India is wild.
In the last test there was one review that took fully five minutes before they showed anything on screen and when they finally showed ball tracking the ball was shown to be two or three feet over the top of the wicket on an LBW review. I thought at the time that in the time it took to put the review on screen any competent computer technician could have altered the actual footage to anything they wanted and they probably did
On the back foot once we lost the toss really and we couldn’t cope in that innings with the spin. Least we managed to avoid the follow on !
Leaving out Bess for Moeen appears to have been a complete disaster of a move. Absolutely zero point in Broad playing on a pitch like this. We can moan about the pitch but watching Moeen bowling all over the place and not getting the sort of turn or control of the Indian spinners isn't down to the pitch. Foakes is a revelation though. Buttler has to drop the gloves for the rest of the year, although he won't and its a shame.
When playing on a turning pitch or balls keeping low and a deteriorating surface play with soft hands, get to the pitch and play as forward as you can to smother spin. Only Foakes seemed to realize this. There is only one result in this. Broad senior must be fed up of how his son has ruined his chance of becoming a decent all rounder. His initial innings showed poise and composure a little bit like Southee. Kyle Jamieson seems next in line. A complete yahoo and out. Pant has been excellent for India. Like most keepers a breed apart. He can certainly keep with two great catches and his batting. Have to say much prefer matches where each run is precious than some games with a flat track with both sides running up enormous scores and a dull draw. Great to see the sport back on terrestrial TV. TMS remains an institution though. Sadly many of those who graced the radio waves with their powers of description, analysis, charm and humour have passed on from Frinders, CMJ, Tony Cozier and of course Jonners. So many hours of aural pleasure.
Was it Private Eye that coined the verb 'to Frindall' 'he frindalls on and on'? I'm glad I haven't watched this test and it doesn't look likely I'll get a chance!
Archer aside who had been injured, in my opinion there was no need to change a winning team. Too many changes (and losing the toss) has led to this.
Unfortunately this plays a major part in the sub continent. Unless you play a team like Sri Lanka who batted incredibly poorly, it is very difficult to win a match batting second
I like his hair and moustache,beard bit. Looks a bit like a Musketeer. Probably not enough to secure a test place I would admit.
We might as well start 0/2 for all the good the openers do but it's been a problem for years. Shame as it's probably the only part that's holding us back from being the number 1 test team again. Always feel that Hameed would have been great. He got that injury and then gradually seemed to disappear, not convinced he even plays cricket anymore.
Crawley would be opening if he wasn’t injured. I’m not 100% sure he is a Test opener either, but probably worth a try.
We’ll be lucky to get a total of 30 runs per innings from Sibley, Burns, plus Lawrence for the rest of this series.
Hameed is with Nottinghamshire, still hoping to get back. https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics...rsuit_greatness_notts_england_lancashire.html
Well that didn’t last long despite some last minute hitting from Moeen Ali. Pink ball and a day night test might give us more of a chance next time. Anderson , Crawley and Bairstow to come in ?
Very odd decision to play Moeen if he was going to go home straight after. If he just made the decision after the game, that's probably the last we'll see of him in the test team.
Obviously something not right ? Sometimes we do hear of cricketers not coping well on your and it’s probably worse for them in the current situation. And I don’t think compared to the footballers they are in posh hotels allowed to do as they like it seems.
Their pitches deteriorate so quickly it's always a massive advantage to bat first but I agree this pitch has been poor, the ball was exploding off the pitch in clouds of dust on day 1. Ultimately it was our poor bowling rather than batting that lost it for us in that first innings, allowing Rohit to score 161 gave us little hope.
Sounds like Sky will still get to show the limited overs matches in India . Guess they probably put in in a lot of money and effort into getting those rights .
A truly awful review from Bairstow. I'm still laughing at it to be honest. Up there with the Aussies review at Headingley in the Ashes.
Crawley in particular and Root doing well but loads of spin already. Joe might be doing a lot of bowling too as we only have one spinner.
