England's Summer of Cricket against Sri Lanka and India

[Chazza]

Stokes needs a score

[ame]https://twitter.com/the_topspin/status/490453160402878464[/ame]

[RichC]

Ouch that's not good reading.

I think this team is in need of a change as a lot of them look shot at the moment with the bat

[Chazza]

50 for Plunkett.

Nice knock.

[Chazza]

319 all out

Eng lead by 24.

[EwarWoo]

Stokes needs a score

https://twitter.com/the_topspin/stat...53160402878464

He looked so up for it as well.

A bit of mentoring from Cook and co has sorted that ****e right out.

[Chazza]

Plunkett on a hat trick.

[Chazza]

India's day? Effectively 145-4

[RichC]

Pretty even for me, those quick burst of wickets brought it back to more of an even day.

I fear for our 2nd innings though

[Shaggy]

India won't lose this from here, no chance.

[RichC]

Agreed, we however certainly can

[destinydude]

India won't lose this from here, no chance.

Thanks for the jinx Shaggy

You never know how our batsmen do with the second new ball. Dhoni is always suspect outside of the subcontinent in tests and Jaddu and Binny aren't all that great if the pitch does things.

[captainfog]

An intriguing Test Match. I'd definitely rather be in India's position right now though. If they can get another 100-150 runs from their last 6 wickets then I really can't see us chasing that down, our batting line up has proven to be very frail and ridiculous collapses have become the norm rather than the exception.

One wonders how good our side would be if our senior pros were playing well. Cook, Bell, Prior, Broad and Anderson have all to varying degrees been playing well below par and the youngsters have often out performed them. I can't help but feel that despite appearing to be a long way away from sorting out our problems we are actually quite close to being a very good side.

Our second innings is massive, absolutely massive and it's probably the most important innings we've had in years. There are several players who will be playing for their careers and I think Cook for his captaincy. The pressure will be massive. A meek performance followed by defeat will almost certainly spell the end for Cook.

Been thinking about it and I think it'll play out like this: Cook gets another low score and steps away from Test Cricket to try and get some form back. The ECB will say he'll return as captain when he comes back. In the meantime we'll do OK and when Cook does eventually return he will say that the interim captain deserves to keep the job and that way the ECB will be able to save some face and not be forced to sack the man they gambled everything on.

[Chazza]

Couple of quick wickets.

203-6

179 ahead.

[Shaggy]

Well that's game over. 243 behind, 3 wickets in hand at lunch.

[destinydude]

Jadeja turning it on

Still think the pitch isn't as bad as people are making it out to be.