3rd Test England v Pakistan, Edgbaston, Aug 3-7.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Friday is sold out.

I always went to all five days. I presume they didn't have five day tickets because tickets always sold well and they made more money not reducing prices. I've had 5 day tickets overseas, but in England, if you lose a day's play, you wouldn't get money back. A five day ticket I bought in Barbados cost face price even though the game only lasted three.

[backfootpunch]

Some poor out shots now and then but I think it was a good day for England, 300 was a good target and if we bowl anywhere near well I reckon that's worth at least a 50 run lead. Woakes won't be daunted he's used to having low scores to bowl against for Warwickshire.

seriously a good day, wouldn't be confident on a 50 run lead.

should be a close game but England would have to bowl well to get pakistan all out before 230.

Id go the other way and say pakistan are going to have to bat very well to reach our score

When the ball swings we have the best bowling attack in the world

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, if it's cloudy, I think England will get a big lead.

[Dr Cricket]

Friday is sold out.

I always went to all five days. I presume they didn't have five day tickets because tickets always sold well and they made more money not reducing prices. I've had 5 day tickets overseas, but in England, if you lose a day's play, you wouldn't get money back. A five day ticket I bought in Barbados cost face price even though the game only lasted three.

well friday not sold out you can still buy tickets now.
although it is 90-95% gone.

think they should bring it now if they going to struggle to sell tickets for all 4-5 days play of a test match.

I do know yorkshire had it for the may test but the other don't do it.

[Dr Cricket]

Yes, if it's cloudy, I think England will get a big lead.

technically the ball should swing less if it is cloudy.

[Dr Cricket]

Some poor out shots now and then but I think it was a good day for England, 300 was a good target and if we bowl anywhere near well I reckon that's worth at least a 50 run lead. Woakes won't be daunted he's used to having low scores to bowl against for Warwickshire.

seriously a good day, wouldn't be confident on a 50 run lead.

should be a close game but England would have to bowl well to get pakistan all out before 230.

Id go the other way and say pakistan are going to have to bat very well to reach our score

When the ball swings we have the best bowling attack in the world

assuming the ball does swing, Swing can be so random at times.

if the ball is only swinging think 295 is a par/below par total and pakistan could get a decent lead if they survive the first 20-30 overs.
if the ball is also seaming then yeah 295 would be a tough total for pakistan but what I have seen the pitch looks good or decent for batting.

Also only two bowlers in the england team actually swing the ball, Anderson/Woakes.
broad stopped trying to bowl the outswinger now and hasn't really got the ball to hoop for a while now and is pretty much a seam bowler now, Finn is basically a bounce bowler.

in my opinion England would have to be brilliant in the field and pakistan being awful with the bat for england to get a decent sized lead.

[Dr Cricket]

Friday is sold out.

I always went to all five days. I presume they didn't have five day tickets because tickets always sold well and they made more money not reducing prices. I've had 5 day tickets overseas, but in England, if you lose a day's play, you wouldn't get money back. A five day ticket I bought in Barbados cost face price even though the game only lasted three.

loads of tickets available for tomorrow play/thursday play.
most of the stands are green, so basically more than half the capacity of tickets are available.

Day 3/ friday most of the tickets are amber although mostly side on, with all the the good seats sold out, with one stand green. still about 1K ticket available.

day 4/ Saturday again most of the stands are green but look like more tickets sold than thursday but not looking good if the game is one sided.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Broad is most dangerous when the ball swings and he bowls very full, as at Trent Bridge last year.

[Arthur Crabtree]

The C5 commentary said play was sold out on Friday. Just going on that. Said there was space on other days.

[Slipstream]

I think Cook might be after Roy's position in the ODI side.

Or Vince's place.
Cook's s/r 86.53 in a Test

[Dr Cricket]

The C5 commentary said play was sold out on Friday. Just going on that. Said there was space on other days.

guessing they been getting the edgbaston/Birmingham emails then lol.

Friday is close to a sell out and might be the day they said 500 tickets were available 2 weeks ago might have to check the emails to see if it was but earlier they was a good amount of tickets left although around 10pm most area/stand only about 50-100 seats left.
on TV it would look like a sell out apart from one small stand being less than half full.

All the rest Birmingham is struggling.

[Dr Cricket]

Broad is most dangerous when the ball swings and he bowls very full, as at Trent Bridge last year.

true although I always class his spell as a freak show it just comes out of no where.

won't class him as a swing bowler though since he doesn't really look to swing the ball most times and doesn't really swing the ball much.

Really only Anderson/Woakes are swing bowlers in this team.

In test cricket Seam is more important that swing since most batsman should be able to cope with just swing.

Although in recent times batsman have been all at sea against Swing bowling.

from what i have seen today not sure their much in the pitch to be sure on England bowling pakistan out for less than 220 although at the same time scoring 350+ would be a tough ask against woakes, broad and Anderson.
although Finn/Ali should provide runs, looking at it Woakes is the key since he does bowl good 1 or 2nd spells but can be expensive in his 3rd or 4th spells.

if woakes doesn't take wickets england might struggle to get a lead in the game and might face a deficit.

Also got doubts on Anderson bowling more than 20 overs a day now, although the good thing is he hardly gives runs away and is always a threat to the batsman.
But reckon the pakistani dressing room is quite confident of getting a lead in the first innings.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Broad does give up on trying to swing the ball quite quickly, and that can feel frustrating on days when swing is available. I wonder if it's something he and Anderson have worked out so as to contrast. Maybe not, Broad seemed to bring it in from limited overs cricket where he hardly tried swing at all, even on good bowling days. I wondered if he so quickly went to cross seam to rough the ball up for Anderson.

But he can and does swing the ball, and reverse swings it. He gets a lot of wickets with swing, but he bowls it as one of a number of varieties, some days more than others, rather than sending down spells of swing. On the days when he gets on a roll, he's usually getting plenty of swing.

[Arthur Crabtree]

We'll see. The commentators I heard said there was some bounce in the pitch. It's hard to be that confident in the Pakistani batters in English conditions, especially with the top three offering some potential for an early collapse. But if the sun is out, I expect they'll get a lead. If it's overcast, I wouldn't be surprised if they get bowled out for less than 200.

[Slipstream]

Broad is most dangerous when the ball swings and he bowls very full, as at Trent Bridge last year.

true although I always class his spell as a freak show it just comes out of no where.

won't class him as a swing bowler though since he doesn't really look to swing the ball most times and doesn't really swing the ball much.

Really only Anderson/Woakes are swing bowlers in this team.

In test cricket Seam is more important that swing since most batsman should be able to cope with just swing.

Although in recent times batsman have been all at sea against Swing bowling.

from what i have seen today not sure their much in the pitch to be sure on England bowling pakistan out for less than 220 although at the same time scoring 350+ would be a tough ask against woakes, broad and Anderson.
although Finn/Ali should provide runs, looking at it Woakes is the key since he does bowl good 1 or 2nd spells but can be expensive in his 3rd or 4th spells.

if woakes doesn't take wickets england might struggle to get a lead in the game and might face a deficit.

Also got doubts on Anderson bowling more than 20 overs a day now, although the good thing is he hardly gives runs away and is always a threat to the batsman.
But reckon the pakistani dressing room is quite confident of getting a lead in the first innings.

Anderson loves bowling long spells, 9/10 overs so does Finn and once you give the ball to Stokes you can't get it back. He can bowl for a whole session. Cook bowls them in short spells though as we have 4 fast bowlers rather than 3 fast bowlers and Swann. There's 90 overs a day so no one needs to bowl more than 20 overs.