England International Cricket Summer 2022

Morgan's body has been failing him though over the past couple of years and he hasn't been able to complete some of the series due various ailments and then you take in the lack of runs in a very successful side and it was the right time to step aside. Buttler is in a good moment in his career and it's the right time for him too to become a leader.

Will go down as the one of the game's greatest captains for his confidence in his convictions and also the complete trust of the team he was leading. He has laid the groundwork for all of English cricket for which the Test team has belatedly followed suit with the Stokes/McCullum partnership. Who even were the England coaches in the short form games for the last 7 years? We never seen them as Morgan was pretty much coach and captain. To change around a moribund and boring team in 2015 to winning the world cup four years later was an incredible achievement. Was before his time with the flicks and reverse sweeps which is now common place and also his six hitting was hugely underrated. He has 202 in ODI's compared to Stokes's 88 for example.

He was unlucky in his test career as you some very good players around when he broke in that an average of 30 was just not good enough whereas for instance now you have Crawley, Lees and Pope who are all hovering below or around that number. Unfortunately he developed a dip in his stance at that time and had an aversion to short bowling and the English test team just moved on without him, unfairly in my view.

Will always be a sore point for some here that he left Ireland to go play for England but that was the natural path back then and he needed to play for England to realise his full potential and in turn they needed him and they probably could never thank him enough for what he has done. Would love to see him come back some day and help the game in this country in some shape or form.

Anyway, he should still be around the game for another couple of years in T20 cricket or the Hunderd, before I'd imagine he will have a career in coaching as he will be a wanted man by all and sundry.

England have confirmed Jos Buttler as their new white ball captain as expected.

They also face India tomorrow in that 5th test match from last year which was postponed after an Indian staff member got Covid and the team opted to pull out. A reminder that India were leading 2-1 coming into the final test match.

England named their side today: 1 Alex Lees, 2 Zak Crawley, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Jonny Bairstow, 6 Ben Stokes (capt.), 7 Sam Billings, 8 Matthew Potts, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Jack Leach, 11 James Anderson

So Zak Crawley holds on to his place somehow, and they have also opted to bring Billings in for Foakes who has Covid. They surely were tempted to give the gloves to Bairstow and bring Harry Brook into the side who has had an incredible year at Yorkshire.

Jaime Overton is left out after Anderson regained his fitness. That leaves England with once again a long tail and let's not forget that they were 55-6 when Overton joined Bairstow and only for their partnership would have faced a monumental uphill task to get a result.

India (probable): 1 Shubman Gill, 2 Cheteshwar Pujara/Mayank Agarwal, 3 Hanuma Vihari, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Shreyas Iyer, 6 Rishabh Pant (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shardul Thakur/ R Ashwin, 9 Mohammed Shami, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Jasprit Bumrah (capt.)

India have announced Bumrah as test captain for this match with Rohit Sharma testing positive for Covid. They are also without Rahul who will be out for a couple of months so will have a new opening partnership. Last year, Ashwin didn't play any of the four test matches but may play tomorrow as the pitches have been better for spinners this year.

India just turned the tables on England and did to them what they did to New Zealand.

Once the new ball got soft and Pant got in, they couldn't stop him similar to what Bairstow and Stokes did to Bracewell. That England bowling attack is very samey with Potts, Broad and Anderson all trying to get wickets the same way and no pace whatsoever or variety. Stokes tried to play the enforcer role and bowled quite poorly but did get a wicket towards the end of the day.

Pant was awesome and when he is in that mood, you just have to hope he makes a silly mistake. Jadeja is also an excellent all-rounder and he will be confident of grabbing his century and getting India into that 400+ range tomorrow morning.

The positive for England is that the pitch looks quite flat and is a new ball wicket. Once you get past those first 25-30 overs, it's go time.

Fascinating contest at the moment which shows how good test cricket is.

Brilliant opening partnership between Crawley and Lees as the new ball did nothing and they finally got in and got a score. India then got the ball changed which has been happening far too much this summer in England and that did a little bit more and Bumrah removed Crawley and Pope either side of tea. Lees then went as Root sold him down the river and a collapse looked likely.

Bairstow and Root have looked fairly untroubled except for a few close calls with Bumrah still the main threat. India seem to be wary of this 'Bazball' thing and have put many men back trying to prevent boundaries, but they are giving Root and Bairstow simple singles which they are happy enough to take. Jadeja was brought on just to dry up an end but that has been pointless in the end.

30 overs until the new ball and England need just under 150 runs so it's still all to play for. India trying to get the ball changed again which is perhaps now their best chance of something this evening.