5th Test: England vs India - The Kia Oval

[yuppie]

England please don't sort this out till after next years ashes.

See how your boys do without sandpaper....

See how you boys do with out batsman

I'll give you that one...

Australia are confident enough that they have not booked a visit to bunnings during their tour.

[sussexpob]

Yup, I think Lillie and thommo in their current state would cause the majority of our line up problems

[bigfluffylemon]

Another collapse, but for once after the top three had done the hard yards to take the shine off the ball and tire the bowlers out. 6 wickets after tea seems a portion way to repay their efforts.

Very slow scoring - tough pitch, tight bowling or both?

Cook and Mo for toughing it out as long as they did, even if they both did get dropped. WTF everyone else?

[Red Devil]

Another collapse, but for once after the top three had done the hard yards to take the shine off the ball and tire the bowlers out. 6 wickets after tea seems a portion way to repay their efforts.

Very slow scoring - tough pitch, tight bowling or both?

Cook and Mo for toughing it out as long as they did, even if they both did get dropped. WTF everyone else?

TBH in my view it was just luck. Cook and Moeen played and missed at about 100 balls - Moeen probably had a play and miss for every run he scored it was that ridiculous ... and then Bairstow comes and nicks off straight away doing basically the same thing. How Cook and Moeen lasted that long nobody will ever figure out, and Shami must have produced one of the best days bowling displays ever to not get a single wicket.

None of this bodes well for the Indian batting as there is cloud cover all day tomorrow and no sunshine.

[Red Devil]

I'll be at the Oval tomorrow - is anyone else going to be there?

[Dr Cricket]

TBH with Cook getting a score it should mean batting conditions are very slow and good for batting, imho ali surviving to get 50 odd confirms this as well you don't play and miss 30 odd deliveries unless the deck is very slow and you able to get your bat out of trouble.

plus with them more or less producing a deck to make sure Cook and the england batsman scoring runs it should mean india should in theory have a good batting day tomorrow.

although England obviously didn't get the memo that they should be scoring runs on day 1.

[Slipstream]

England please don't sort this out till after next years ashes.

See how your boys do without sandpaper....

See how you boys do with out batsman

India 7 batsmen 4 bowlers (were excellent all going at under 2 an over)
England - 5 batsmen, 6 bowlers .. why why why 6 bowlers?

[Arthur Crabtree]

England have eight batters and six bowlers don't they?

[bigfluffylemon]

England have eight one batters and six bowlers don't they?

Fixed it for you.

[alfie]

The Indian bowling , after lunch , was magnificent - especially Shami , who was extraordinary unlucky not to take wickets. Then in the late session they reaped the rewards of all the pressure they'd built up. Even so the England batting was dreadfully disappointing , particularly coming after setting such a handy platform.

Batting conditions looked as if they were going to be easy : but the persistent slow scoring and inability of any batsmen - partially excepting Cook - from looking remotely comfortable says that that was an illusion. Ball moved all day ; even the poor old keeper had nightmares trying to pick it up.

Batting might be easier on day two . But I won't be at all surprised if it isn't . Even if England are cleaned up early , India will need to bat a lot better than they've been doing to earn the sort of lead they will need. Because it is surely going to turn by the last couple of days...

I've thought throughout the summer that India were missing a trick by not playing Jadeja. Granted the weather always hinted extra seam bowling was advisable ; but I think unless conditions are extreme you should generally play to your strengths ...and the tight spin option he provides is one of them. Perhaps especially against England.

Hoping for another tense battle tomorrow in the spirit of this engrossing series...

[budgetmeansbudget]

131-1 to 198-7

how terribly predictable

Can't remember England being 131/1 too often in the last few years, it clearly flummoxed all the guys coming in from 4 to 8. They're much more used to 30 odd for 3 and a rebuilding exercise instead of adding to runs already gained.

Then there's the two an over run rate, that must have totally bamboozled them!

[Dr Cricket]

TBH thought the wicket was like the Nagpur one in 2012.
even that wicket had some help for the spinners, probably had a similar amount of play and miss like here but the slow nature of the pitch meant it was impossible to get out and the only way to get out was to force runs on the pitch.

you don't really score 198 in a days play anymore unless the scoring was really tough on and you don't really ever have 60-70 play and misses in a days play, so with those two in account it really suggest the pitch is very slow.

Although they will still be movement with the ball considering this year batch of dukes ball is swinging a lot, but the slowness of the deck is taking the bite out of the movement and unless you go looking for runs you should be ok surviving on this deck.

Still feel this is one of the better batting tracks in this series and with all the pressure gone in the series, India could go big here, especially since this track is perfect for Pujara, on a slow track pujara will hardly be in trouble and he does like them, Rahane and kohli could score big as well.
Kohli biggest regret was getting out first innings in Southampton and not getting a big lead to win the game, so if he gets in suspect he getting a big score to make sure he doesn't make the same mistake twice.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Might bring about an epic defence to draw the game like in Nagpur.

[Red Devil]

Looks a little bit brighter at the ground than I was expecting ... time to settle in with the kid for what should hopefully be a great day of test cricket.

Was hoping we'd have a wicket by now, hopefully this won't be another case of the tail wagging against India

Is no-one else at the Oval today?

[Dr Cricket]

Looks a little bit brighter at the ground than I was expecting ... time to settle in with the kid for what should hopefully be a great day of test cricket.

Was hoping we'd have a wicket by now, hopefully this won't be another case of the tail wagging against India

Is no-one else at the Oval today?

probably no one.