Alex

I bet they leave that out the Netflix series

Whoah, hang on. He’s from Boldon

Aye. I couldn’t give a fuck about the ‘morality’ of it in the same way morality is virtually nonexistent in football anyway. And I want it to happen just for the reaction tbh

Am I right in thinking it’s just a box with no water supply, food rations or even a bog? So, on the unlikely event they’ve survived at all would they not just have died of thirst before the air ran out?

That parsimonious Yorkshire spirit strikes again

All this bollocks about rewriting the rules. Hanse Cronje was making these sorts of declarations decades ago

I don’t know what makes you think they’re about to bring Foakes back in. But you’re almost in full agreement with the rest of us, if you think that. I.e. ‘Bazball’ with a modicum of sense with the recklessness reined in a bit. But then you seem to be fully justifying their approach on the other hand. Not trying to be clever, I just mean I don’t see any changes to the approach re: the wicketkeeper. So you aren’t going to see that sensible compromise imo. It’ll only be injuries (like to Moeen perhaps, with Lord’s coming too soon) or necessary rotation of the quicks with the series being packed into such a short space of time. Anyway, I think there’s about 10 different things at least that were tactical or selection decisions that contributed to that loss. Irrespective of agreeing in principle with the philosophy, I think it’s fair enough to criticise that.

They weren’t likely to bat another half a session though. Root was smashing all over and 8 wickets were down. It’s more the point there were relatively easy runs to plunder. I agree it’s the missed chances that cost us. But that’s massively on Stokes, McCullum and ‘Bazball’ too seeing as that’s the reason you had Bairstow playing instead of someone who’d almost certainly have taken those crucial chances.

Preferred his earlier collaborations with Stimpy

Re: the declaration, you obviously can’t 100% predict what would have happened but defending it by saying it would’ve been a draw otherwise is a massive assumption. It would’ve created more scoreboard pressure having more runs on the board. This would’ve allowed far more attacking fields in the second Australian innings as well putting more pressure on their first innings.

I think the only likely change is Wood for Moeen. Not that I disagree really, although Duckett deserves more of a chance than Crawley, who has had loads of opportunities. I just think they’ll stick with what they’ve gone with in the first test. Maybe Moeen missing out due to his finger issue. Wood might’ve bade the difference in this test ironically. It was too easy for their tail with the lack of pace in the attack (and not having a proper spinner).

Aussies always win at lords too. But, aye. Some poor decisions like the declaration. And the selection of Ali because he bowls so little now with only playing white ball cricket. Which is compounded by Stokes clearly only being able to bowl a couple of overs here and there now. Re: Bairstow there’s a very obvious set of reasons he kept so badly. Apart from his lengthy injury, he wasn’t even keeping wicket before that. Foakes was the test keeper and Buttler in the white ball setup. So you’ve got someone who converted to wicketkeeper anyway, rather than someone who’s practiced the basics since childhood, coming back off a long layoff, not having kept wicket for ages. And all the prep he’s had is a few championship games for Yorkshire. It would be bad enough but Foakes has a better FC average than most of the actual batsmen

It’s the biggest news item of course. Forgive me for not really giving a fuck

Someone pointed out it was really overcast / poor light when Crawley and Duckett got out in the second innings. So this then means the light meter reading will have to be at least slightly worse than that for them to come off for bad light. So that’s another potential bonus for England

He looks worse every time you see him. Only 56 years old as well

Nice to see Southgate thinking about the future and starting Henderson at home v North Macedonia

As has been mentioned before, even their fantasy scenarios are absolutely shite

I’ve spotted him on there too. Predictably he’s doing the anti-woke lowest common denominator shite. Julia Hartley-Brewer has a morning phone-in too

I noticed Talk TV or whatever it’s called, which appears to be almost as bad, now occupies most of the time of the shitty local channel (7 on freeview).

The decision to play Bairstow as wicketkeeper continues to look great

I think the forecast suggests it’ll be ok tomorrow although the start might be delayed. I think they can play until either 7 or 7.30 to due to the time lost yesterday. I still think the declaration was daft and I would even if England win.

The other thing is, these two will happily milk ones and twos. Root especially is a master of going at a run a ball without even hitting boundaries

You know what though. They’ve counter-punched and it’s spread the field already.

Wtaf