Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

England have a long tail, and there will be a new ball unless they can score more than 5 an over, so a couple of quick wickets and India are still in it.

But England are in the box seat for now.

That over probably sums up England's summer. Root has a bit of a slash at a short ball, edge skies up, lands short. He then looses a bit of concentration and gets a bit of a scratchy cntact on the next defence, and then an edge lands short of slip.

When it goes your way, it really goes your way

Jadeja finally in...Root responds with a bit of a wild switch hit.

Way too late.. then misses Roots edge, before another wild switch hit misses everything.

Root must have a tee time booked at 1

This summer has been the most unlikely of England performances.......

The last few years I have paid for a streaming sports service - (Aus)Foxsports online arm, Kayo.

One of the beauties of it is lately being able to watch the first session on a lot of most of the tests in England this northern summer.

This morning's session has been a very good one for a fairly impartial observer. Very entertaining.

And there is Bairstow's 100

This summer just gets more crazy

No problem. Must be among the best ten chases in England.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:No problem. Must be among the best ten chases in England.

I think Athers said its the highest chase by/in England, heaviest chase conceded by India in test cricket, and the 8th or 9th overall highest chase of all time.

That was rather fun to watch

Not like England to turn what should have been a tense battle into a walk in the park. Four chase downs , all records of some sort or near enough : astonishing sequence ; and I suppose it will have to end sometime. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that they've improved a bit under the new management.

Though I am sure there will be naysayers who contend that this is all down to the ineptitude of their opponents or the shape of the balls...

SA in a month or so. Will be interesting. For now I am just drinking a wee toast to Joe and Jonny - and Lees and Crawley too among others

they must have galloped along to knock off 119 runs in 16 or 17 overs. That has to be 6 an over pace on a pitch that a day earlier was demonstrating some uneven bounce. As I understand it, England opted for the heavy roller in the final innings, whereas they opted for the light roller ahead of their first dig which, I suppose, begs the question of why they went with the light roller on day 2.

alfie wrote: it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that they've improved a bit under the new management

Playing devil's advocate, one could make a case that the majority of England's success is made up on their best batsman and bowler performing to very high levels, and the addition of one player on the form of his life, and a handful of decent contributions down the team.

But Lees, Pope and Crawley all average under 30 this summer, so its hard to say they have improved. Foakes/Billings samples are too small with 2 games each, and neither really making a noteworthy batting innings. Potts has no point of reference as he debuted. Leach I'd argue looks uncertain to be picked and got the ball after Root this test. Stokes batting level this summer is about what he averaged normally in the recent summers past, but his bowling has declined. Broad's figures have declined.

And then you take the three that have done unquestionably well.

Root is coming off arguably his best calendar year (averaged more in 14, but only 10 innings, compared to a massive amount of games in 21) and his average when not captaining is 10 runs better. He's a world class player that seems to have entered his very peak, and the evidence was already there before this summer.

Bairstow scored 3 centuries in 4 tests before the summer... so he was already carrying career best form too.

Anderson in the first half of the summer in England doing well? Its the cricketing equivalent of gravity, its just a constant.

Sometimes England go into series with lots of questions to answer and come out of them with more questions to answer. This isn't one of them. It has been a stellar first half of the test summer.

There is still work to do on establishing a reliable top order, but there are tentative signs of improvement since the end of the revolving door policy

All of a sudden the questions over YJB have been put to bed and the middle order looks as strong as any in world cricket.

There ought to be a bit of stability with the gloves now. No-one in their right mind would muck about with YJB atm, the Buttlerfingers situation has been resolved, presumably to everyone's satisfaction, and so with Billings making a few mistakes behind the stumps, there is a decent chance that England's best gloveman will get an extended run in the side once he's fit again

The advent of Matty Potts looks set to end the perennial question over whether both A & B have to play, and once other bowling alternatives like Robinson become fit again, the core of seam bowling ought to take care of itself. England need a bigger pool of speed merchants to draw from, because Wood and Archer, plus all the others being mooted, just can't stay healthy enough for long enough, but then that is what the flat pitches around the counties are meant to address. Ditto spin, although Leach has shown glimpses of what he can be capable of

The captaincy has improved immeasurably under Stokes. Even if the short ball tactic is a bit wearing and irritating and frustrating, there is a much more proactive approach to bowling changes and field placings. Everything else is more positive, players seem to be better supported and with results like these, morale will surely not have been this high in years, so there is something there to build upon. I imagine that players around the counties who have perhaps already been part of a period of declining fortunes for England will suddenly be champing at the bit to try and become a part of this side

and there is an end to covid protocols and bubbles and all of the other associated rubbish that has indisputably had a massively negative impact on the group and on performances over the last couple of years.

Still a good summer for English supporters after the recent test issues.

or it might be what SP said

clearly we've both been thinking about the same things