by bigfluffylemon » Fri Sep 08, 2017 5:04 am
Of FFS. A bowling day to be sure, but only England can bowl the opposition out for 120 in two sessions and still end up in a position where they might easily lose the game. Relying on the lower order to bail them out YET AGAIN.
Friday looks like a horrible day for batting according to the forecast, although the saving grace for England is that there may not be much play at all, so they hopefully can survive the day. It only needs one decent partnership for England to get a healthy lead, so not the end of the world yet, but days 3 and 4 look better for batting according to the weather, so England really need a good first innings lead to have much of a chance, I think.
Stokes now has more centuries and more 5 wicket hauls than Flintoff managed, and he's only 26 and four years into his career. He's also got a better career strike rate than Fred. Can't quite believe he averages 35 with both ball and bat. If only he could be more consistent. That said, maybe he is becoming so - since the start of 2016 he's averaged 45 with the bat with 4 hundreds and 6 fifties in 33 innings, and 27 with the ball with 49 wickets, 2 five wicket hauls at a strike rate of 52. That's pretty impressive on both fronts.