And Its Smith

Tomorrow looks a very hard one. Thankfully most of these are covered by guarantees of free bets afterwards by paddy power and sky bet! 1:30 mighty potter 13/2 2:10 Magic Daze 16/1 2:50 Tea Clipper 11/1 3:30 Teahupoo 10/1 4:10 Queens Brook 4/1 4:50 The Tide Turns 7/1

Paddy power for new customers is very good

Very jealous you are over there! My friend flies out tomorrow for the second test Will be looking at races the night before as will know the definite list of runners but Tornado Flyer looks a good 12/1 shot.

Gericault Roque has my interest in that one. LIT is a good bet though at 20s I agree

Resurrecting this thread ahead of the best week of the year. Anyone got any longer odd fancies ? Anyone going ?

Don’t think Dack complained though so don’t think he did see him

He’s being Dack when the ball is struck. Dack can’t see him

Windies 20-1 to win so bookies not all convinced they will go for it. Hope they do as will make for a great last few hours

Captains always bat on for too long in my opinion which is understandable really so I am sure they will set them closer to 300 than 250

270 would be enough. They can’t get that in 2 sessions surely. I’d give them 5 overs before lunch if we get enough. Highly likely a draw but it might start turning

England going for it!

A Barnsley win certainly makes life more exciting for us all!

Lawrence will be gagging to get out there

He’s nearly 28 so not sure he’s the future anyway. England are poor at the moment and the next couple of years will be tough but if we can get the correct people at the top of the game then I’ve got high hopes. England football changed the structure of youth football years ago playing smaller sided games etc and we now see the benefits of that. The cricket opportunities and coaching in the youth game has really taken off over the last few years. My one criticism is that it is too 20/20 focused (all the games are 20-30 overs so not too surprising) and most kids still cannot adapt when they come out to bat at 30/4 with 15 overs left to bat but from recent webinars I’ve seen that may well be changing. It’s certainly on the radar.

Personally I think it’s different. Batsman form is more up and down than bowlers by the very nature of the different jobs they do. Any batsman can play a bad shot or get a bit of bad luck, therefore judging over a longer period of time negates luck and the odd bad shot to give a truer picture of ability. With bowling, you bowl a bad ball and the damage is limited and quickly forgotten so bowlers can be judged a bit quicker. Overton for example, has never looked a test bowler and again doesn’t in this test. It seems highly unlikely to me that he will improve enough (or even at all) if we picked him for the next 18 months.

Kalas is injured Kalas injured according to Pearson. Think he played RB rather than RWB

This wicket is a joke. Offers nothing to the bowlers after about 10 overs. If the batsman fail again I think it might be a new low, even if they score 250. Just need to bat 4 sessions and ignore the run rate

Answer is wheels

Good manager in charge then that’s why….

Roman Abramovich sanctioned. All UK assets frozen. Chelsea can still operate under a special licence but sale now on hold. Club will not be allowed to sell any more tickets - only season ticket holders can go to games for the foreseeable future.

Course it is. Would be surprised if he WASNT doing it really.

You should tell the England management. Don’t think anyone has realised that yet !

Rory Burns has at least one I think. Maybe Carberry Plenty of openers have come in and started well, just then have been worked out and found to not be up to it. Compton was hard done by I thought. Looked good enough and dropped too soon

If England can get to 300 they will feel ahead of the game. Lose no more wickets today and it might turn out to be England’s day. West Indies have 3 very good bowlers but will be interesting to see what their batsman produce tomorrow

Beautiful from Seales. He’s an impressive bowler