I said to a lad whose there today that it will be done and dusted fr 230 pm,looks like I was about 30 minutes out
Pathetic batting from England in both innings
Well that was a meek surrender
Abject surrender. Joe looked a bit shell shocked in the interview.
Hopefully he comes back fighting and aggressive.
Thing is, due to the ECB's obsession with T20 there's no first class cricket for ages for those out of nick to have a game or two.
Absolute SHAMBLES,Our Joe's got his work cut out wi this lot.It seems to me we're alr8 when we're on top but most lack bottle when it comes to a battle.Jennings,Ballance&dawson have to be dropped in my view,how d'ya you see it TT? Bully be careful or i may ask Jos to Ban thi. UTCB
Well the problem is there's not much out there to replace them. Woakes, when fit, will come straight back in for Dawson.
As for an alternative opener Hameed has gone so far backwards no one even mentions him. Maybe Stoneman who went to Surrey from Durham might be worth a try. Ballance is not, and never has been, a no 3. He bats at 5 and gets plenty of runs there.
Personally I'd prefer him back at Yorks but feel the selectors have mis - handled him but they are Teflon coated so they'll give him another go at 3 so that he's seen to have hung himself rather than strung out by their sullied hands.
Dawson's a Joe pick so, again, might survive but not for long as said above.
I have copied this, below,from a poster on the White Rose forum site and I have to say, for me, he's 100% right.
"Well the ECB are in the process of destroying Cricket players as we all knew and loved them to swash buckling one day players where the quick buck is everything , lets hope there is something left to be recovered when it all goes belly up"
Can you imagine Sir Geoff giving his wicket away like 9 out of the 11 did today? They,SA, toughed it out.
Apart from Cook and Root who was out to a beauty, the rest lacked bottle and guts and JB was daft wafting at the ball. Batting to save a test match has, for some of the reasons expressed above, become a forgotten art.
Drop Wood and Les for Plunkett and Adil,,drop Pat for Stoneman,drop Ballance for Habib