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

[Dr Cricket]

guessing with root bowling it means cooks given up now.

[backfootpunch]

Doubt it would most likely be ball and rashid ridiculously won't have played a test before he expected to bowl india out in india lol.

will be just like lyon in sri lanka where they concede more runs for wickets and probably are less threatening than the opposition spinners.

Team versus India?

Cook
Hales
Root
Vince/Ballance
Stokes
Bairstow
Ali
Woakes
Rashid
Broad
Anderson

Id have stokes 7, Ali 6 and bairstow 5

[backfootpunch]

guessing with root bowling it means cooks given up now.

They won't give up for a while yet

[Aidan11]

guessing with root bowling it means cooks given up now.

They won't give up for a while yet

Root bowled the best ball of the last innings.


He can be a useful partnership breaker.

[Dr Cricket]

guessing with root bowling it means cooks given up now.

They won't give up for a while yet

depends on what the wickets doing and if the bowlers actually wanna bowl.
Expect Ali to bowl at one end and the quick getting rotated at the other.
maybe in the last session the joke bowlers will bowl some overs.

Think bumble correct they probably have a 30 minute burst and then probably save their energies for oval.

[Dr Cricket]

guessing with root bowling it means cooks given up now.

They won't give up for a while yet

Root bowled the best ball of the last innings.


He can be a useful partnership breaker.

missed it was watching the archery, forgot that it was lunch lol and thought england gave up when Root was bowling.

[alfie]

Runs leaking. Pakistan still in this.

they always were in it
310 would have been idiotic.
343 is just high enough to get the draw.

Reckon Moeen overs should be interesting in this game since he could make england nervous in the afternoon session.
Especially if pakistan need 100 or so to win in 15-18 overs.

I do not think 310 would have been "idiotic". But it would have constrained England's ability to attack for long periods , if wickets were not falling. And limited the scope for use of the spinners (who may yet prove useful)

Unless someone plays an absolute blinder I can't see Pakistan getting near 343 ; since unlike a limited over contest there is nothing to prevent the fielding team from adopting very defensive fields. And dry lines.

As long as they don't lose wickets I'd expect Pakistan to look to score , so as to keep some pressure back on the bowlers. But if they find themselves three or four down I think the shutters will come up ...

[Dr Cricket]

Imho if pakistan batted 90 overs they would chase 310 so yes it would be idiotic this tweet from someone is quite good.

Chasing targets in Test cricket are often looked at the wrong way. The question is not whether a team can score 300 on Day 5....
but what would a team do if it needs 140 in last session with 7 wkts in hand. The bowling team is under immense pressure on decks like this.
Which is why this is a top declaration from England. Anything till 375 would have been perfectly understandable, but they didn't wait.
300 would have been suicide.

300 would have been stupid considering I reckon pakistan might have won with ease that is how flat this wicket is.
scoring 3.3 runs per over is pretty easy in this age of t20 batting.

the negative stuff only works if the asking rate get above 8 or 9 and if it reaches that high teams play for the draw anyway.

it is idiotic to declare around 300 if you giving the opposition the sniff of a victory and big sniff at that then batting few overs to get quick 30-50 runs to outbat the opposition. England probably declared at the right time and cook for once was quite brave with the declaration.

[Dr Cricket]

What birmingham loves cricket are you having a laugh a terrible attendance for this test match worse than old trafford and at least old trafford were honest to say ticket sales were slow.

[Aidan11]

Can Broad take a wicket?


Probably not.

[Dr Cricket]

Broad very slow.
broad looks off colour this tour probably needs a break again, wouldn't surprise me if he get dropped in india for a few test just like in 2012.

[alfie]

Matter of opinion...

Personally I think your tweeting friend underestimates the difficulty of maintaining four per over for a full day...I note it very rarely happens in a fourth innings.

But it is true this pitch seems unusually friendly... In any case , it is all academic now as 343 is the target. Or batting to the close...

[backfootpunch]

3 wickets needed in this session

[Dr Cricket]

Well in the last 5-10 yrs more targets of 300 have been chase and it has been easy to score 4 runs a day in most test days so is not that difficult as it is claim it is difficult to chase it if the pitch is difficult to bat on.

Might be wrong but india were close to chasing 400 or high 300 in adelaide god knows how their lost the game though.
any good batting deck on day 5 and chasing 300 is risky business now because of T20.

Really only making the point since I reckon a lot of the people calling for declaration yesterday actually missed the point and probably can't see how easy chasing 300 could be on this pitch or similar type of wickets.

anyway like you say 343 is the target now, might be an interesting evening session if Pakistan don't lose more than 1 wicket in this session.

reckon pakistan got 3-8% of winning this maybe more if they bat out this session with no wickets.
if pakistan need 140 to chase in 30-33 overs would give them about 30-40% of winning it.

Think Pakistan caused a gubbing last time they chased 300+ against sri lanka in sri lanka since it was a shoe in draw at one point and sri lanka were likely winnings as well at one point, no one gave pakistan a chance in the end they chased the total with ease.

if the ball doing something or actually turning then yes 300 is a lot but the way journalist were speaking last night or this morning suggested pakistan won't get within 100 or 150 of 300 which is ridiculous considering if they bat normally they will get close to 300 and the closer they get the more likely they will be to win since teams should be able to get 120-130 in 30 overs or something like that.

[backfootpunch]

Bairstow could have caught that

On a pitch with such low bounce he has to go for everything