International cricket thread

Big chance to get Rohit early.

Jaiswel goes. India 42/1.

West indies win by 8 runs

Shock as Rohit Sharma gets 30 and gets out. Did it loads in the world cup and in the first innings here. Slogs it away a lot in ODIs, he's unfit and gets tired after an hour. India are a joke, a billion of them and 800 million of them play cricket, and they still messed up the world cup final at home, and they are chucking this away as well. Can't play in England or New Zealand either against decent seam bowling. Gill especially looks like a dead loss. All these fellas pad their stats at home to Bangladesh, but they are not up to much. That Prithvi Shaw should be in this team unless he's injured, he's a class player

India have watched England score at will in their second innings, a guy make nearly 200 and they are currently 7 down with just over 100 on the board. It's a terrible performance by India, England have really grabbed the initiative since yesterday and generally never let up. Hard to see England not winning from here.

Ashwin didn't need to do that.

Match over, final over of the day and Siraj comes flying down the pitch and fresh airs. Incredible turn around by England. Didn’t give them a prayer at the end of day two. Sets up the series beautifully.

Young Rehan took 0/33. Hartley got 7 after everyone on this wrote him off. What exactly does Jack Leach do? He's Monty Panesar without the anger issues

Be interesting to see what direction India go with the pitches. England went one nil up last time but that was a classic Indian flat pitch that turned big later on. Toss decided that. Rest of the pitches were dustbowls after. This time England won on a spinning pitch and looked comfortable against all their spinners.

Ravindra Jadeja being reported by India Today & NDTV in India as well as other outlets as very doubtful for this weeks test….in fact ‘could’ miss the remainder of the series….

Dangerous game being overly critical of this England team mid game. Its caught out enough experts who are paid to give their opinions nevermind casual fans on boards. Hallmark of them since Stokes took over is finding ways to get back into games from seemingly impossible situations. Third innings it's like the opposition freeze and before you know it they're back on top.

Proud of myself for not going overboard on Hartley after day one, said it met a rampant Jaiswal but bowled alright to the right handers. Pope surprised me, call it 1-1 after his first innings.

Nothing could be further from the truth… so maybe desist from disingenuous lies / claims as above :) I’m hopeful that England win this series…and I don’t hate any cricket team so…. I am a Ben Stokes fan, he makes some head scratching captaincy call in my opinion. Some that in my view went towards costing England the Ashes…

my prediction wasn’t correct in this test but not an unreasonable one when it was made, the bookies and indeed many cricket commentators at one point agreed with me…

Ganguly one of the greats predicted in the Hindu Times 4-0 or 5-0 to India…. One of the greatest cricketers and captains, but yes, he predicted wrong too !

Big team news today is that Ravi Jadeja and KL Rahul will miss the second match. Safaraz Khan added to the squad. His record in first class cricket is incredible averaging 69.8 so a long overdue call up. Washington Sundar would be the closest to Jadeja but they have Kuldeep too. Both might play and drop Siraj who didn't bowl a lot.

It's a pity the WI win in Brisbane isn't getting the attention of the England victory, I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realise 1997 was their last test victory in Australia, and given where Test Cricket has fallen in the WI, their victory was exceptional. 20 tests in 20 years, 16 defeats and 4 draws. Shamar Joseph was excellent, let's hope he continues to deliver.

England did well, with huge performances from Pope and Hartley in particular, notably from the position they found themselves in on day 2, but in some of the narratives around the game you'd swear England were a plucky underdog in a David v Goliath contest - in reality, it was the second-best Test team versus the 3rd best (I accept the WTC doesn't currently reflect this - but we know there are flaws in that system). I think most would accept that Aus/India and England are the top 3 test teams, possibly with NZ just behind.

Interesting to see how India responds, they will want to hit back hard, the injuries are a problem, though perhaps some fresh faces may be a positive too. Will England bring in Anderson?

It was a remarkable win by the West indies. I don't think it's been neglected by the cricket media at all though. Both ended the same day and a lot of time was donated to it and it reopened the whole discussion on the bigger picture of the game.

It reminds me of 2019 when Stokes played that amazing Headingley innings, people were complaining that Kusal Perara didn't get enough praise for his equally great innings in South Africa. For people on this side of the world one is higher profile than the other and will get more of our attention.

What is something to look forward to is the West indies coming to England in a few month. That attack now is very exciting. Always have a chance with good bowlers.

Forecast had suggested it might be a day lost due to weather but that’s improved now which is great….

I think I’ll be forgoing the AM session and setting the alarm to catch up with play after lunch.

Pitch is looking more seam friendly according to Zak Crawley so Anderson or Robinson you'd imagine. Pitch could look totally different the morning of the game so who knows.

Anderson and Bashir in for Wood and Leach

In that first test Wood bowled 17 overs in the first innings, just 8 in the second was wicketless for the whole test…. Bowled very economically though 2.76 and 1.88 were his economy rates respectively. But if you ain’t taking wickets I guess. Brave move by Stokes…. Anderson almost 42…. Bowling in temperatures of 31°….. wonder if Wood has a niggle and they are resting him… nothing in the media that I can see. He is 34 so maybe it’s seen as necessary across a 5 test series in very hot and challenging conditions.

Dropped, rested, rotated, managing his workload all amount to the same thing. He didn't bowl that much, 25 overs in total. Put it this way, had been as effective as Bumrah was he would playing again tomorrow.

Wood was fine, economical and had a chance dropped. Bumrah, his direct rival, clearly out bowled him however. He’s a strike bowler and they need someone to bowl longer spells.

If Anderson can replicate what he did in India last time he will bring more to the team. It’s often said it’s roles reversed when in India, spinners attack and the seamers dry up an end. After a poor Ashes there’s questions about Anderson too.

Did it again, should be dropped to be honest, bats on roads and gives it away after an hour whatever the format. 2 ducks in a row against Afghanistan in 2 T20s, then gets a hundred and all is forgiven. He does this too many times.

Just looked up Rohit in the world cup. In overs 1-10 he scored 401 @80.2. That's very impressive, outside the powerplay overs he made 196@32.66. Again another hundred against Afghanistan 134 to pad his stats. Still think he threw it away too many times

second wicket down. Good catch by Foakes to dismiss Gill off the bowling of Anderson.

England needed that. They didn’t create enough this morning… a close LBW shout and an arial shot just evading square leg…were the only close calls besides the 2 wickets .

Lunch 103/2.. India will be very satisfied with their mornings work.