Robbored

Yeah...........

We'll have to agree to disagree EMB. As for five day tests - ask any test playing cricketer which is the toughest test they face in their professional career and to a man they'll tell you test cricket is the daddy. Its cricket at it purist and finest.

Root wants England to play positive cricket by encouraging a positive mindset in his team. Sure, he could of batted on but with only two wickets left he decided to try and knock off one or two Windies wickets that evening. Unfortunately neither Broad or Anderson could make the breakthrough. Had he batted on and the two remaining wickets had fallen in the next couple of overs (always a possibility) we would not be discussing this now.

When the declaration was made the Windies were demoralised having seen their first inns lead overtaken by such a large margin. With just a few overs left in the days play the last thing the two openers would wanted was to face the new ball. Unfortunately for England they both survived the attack from Broad and Anderson. Had just one wicket fell we might have seen a different result yesterday. No way was Root at fault foe declaring when he did,

Absolutely the right call. The test was lost when England failed to reach 300+ in the first innings.

Windies were obviously badly shaken by their humiliation at Edgebaston and have upped their game tremendously. They bowled well and their fielding was significantly better. Today I was delighted to see England overcome the deficit with just 3 down and if they can get a decent lead of around 200/250 the last day will be fascinating to see both teams battling it out on a deteriorating wicket.

To make a run fest. Unfortunately Somerset are around 25 runs short of par.......

Interesting.........but begs the question as why the leather isn't dyed pink rather than being coated.

So was Andy Roberts.

I appreciate that there are no definite explanations to how/why a ball will swing or not but surely the colour shouldn't make the slightest difference and yet we saw the pink ball doing all sorts as the lights kicked it. The Sky commentators were as amazed by its antics saying that it must be because it's pink.....

At Edgbaston under lights the pink ball is behaving differently to a red or white ball would in the same conditions. My question is - why if only the colour is different do they vary so much? Surely any cricket ball of the same make should react the same regardless the colour?

No they're not and seemingly unable to offer any serious challenge to England. Leaderless as well. Its a sorry state of affairs.

Well they don't seem to know what they're doing. New ball available, lights on and they don't take it but continue with their fourth seamer who gets injured after three deliveries to be replaced by spin............ Windies are a bit of a shambles.

Broad was saying on Sky Sports how much he's looking forward to playing with a pink ball but says that it goes soft quicker than a red one. This might be a dumb thought but if it's only the colour of the ball that's different why should it go softer more quickly? And.........why do we need day/night test matches in England? We have a long dusk compared to other countries. Our test matches are very well supported so attracting crowds isn't so important as other test match countries.

England have struggled to find an opening partner for Cook so why not give Stoneman a chance? The Windies arent the force they once were and England should beat them despite the introduction of the pink ball under lights.

Lets hope so. He was a half pissed and mouthy git and blocking people's view which led to him getting the shotgun verbals from the women behind me. Fair play to her.

A 3-1 series win. Where are the England critics now? Moeen bags another 5 for.......25 wickets in the series. Well done England!

Great innings from Bairstow shame about him not reaching his hundred...........

Michael holding said earlier about Jimmy hitting a six from his own end...............

Just arrived home from Neville Rd. Somerset at least 25 runs short of a competitive score. Glos got there easily. We unfortunately had a bunch of pissed up gasheads sat a bit further down and one of them, a big fat guy was a bloody nuisance by standing up and showing off to his mates. Eventually some women behind me gave him both barrels of verbal. That shut him up.

I didn't know that. My buddy got the tickets and I was expecting to be in a temporary stand. I'm wondering where we'll be now........there's five us so I hope we can all be in same area.

There was me thinking I'd come up with an original...............

Why was my thread merged? The title was the funny bit!

Gotta be worth its own thread.....

Maybe it's just the Somerset media that are speculating............ Ive certainly not seen anything on local tv or in the Post.