Not for an opener in my opinion.

So (for example) Boycott, Gooch, Greenidge, Langer or Smith were not world class?

I think they were.

Australia may not make it to lunchtime on Day 3

Both Warner and Smith gone at 82-5

In the words of Sgt Major Williams in It Ain't Half Hot Mum, "oh dear, how sad, never mind"

It is amusing to see them capitulate so easily

Very strange shot selections contributing to their downfall

Not sure what they decided in their team meeting but to choose to reverse sweep off the first delivery you face would seem a strange direction to go. Voges did hit it for 4 but an odd way to approach things

Voges has just gone playing the reverse sweep to one that pitched nearly 2 feet outside leg and bowled him !

No wonder Lehman is going mad

Massive win for Sri Lanka by 229 runs

First time since 1997 ( against us) that no Australian batsman has reached 50 in 2 completed innings
They have 10 days to sort out a way to combat the spinners or it will probably happen again in the final Test

I second that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4uivPpzCGo

That is an astonishing statistic.

just catching the end of last night's the verdict where they are talking about over-rates and the impact of reviews on time

i think they need to apply a bit more common sense to the review process

firstly there needs to be better communication between the onfield umpire and the 3rd umpire. take the review pakistan used for the hales lbw appeal last night. we had to go through normal camera view, slow motion view, hotspot from a couple of angles to check for an inside edge, RTS to check for an inside edge, all before they used ball tracking which showed it had pitched outside leg stump anyway so everything else was irrelevant. so surely if the onfield umpire says to the 3rd umpire right at the start that he gave it not out because he thinks it pitched outside of leg stump, that should be the first thing they check. rather than follow a premeditated process actually talk to each other to at least try and use the technology better.

secondly, the review process is meant to be used to confirm whether the onfield umpire has made the correct decision and that it should only be overturned when there is conclusive evidence to suggest the decision was wrong. surely if the 3rd umpire needs to look at 30 slow motion replays of hotspot from 10 different camera angles and rock'n'roll frames to check for little marks then by definition there is no conclusive evidence either way and they should have just gone with the onfield decision. so basically have a time limit of the 3rd umpire as for the evidence to overturn needing to be conclusive should mean it is fairly obvious and doesn't require all those replays.

SKY doing a current world XI before the live coverage, rameez raja, warne and atherton the selectors.

how does stokes get into a current world XI as a bowling all-round in front of angelo matthews ?

We should have some common sense applied to the over rates. We have the review system which takes time, we have drinks breaks which I don't remember from the old days. There needs to be some time considered for left handed/right handed batsman and the changing field. A day with a lot of wickets will also lose some time.

We also should need some common sense made to the start and finish times. I think the first day of the second test had 89 overs bowled. Would it be the end of the world as we know if we bowled a few extra overs past six-thirty. That one extra over would have had stumps at 6.33 instead of 6.30. We have extra time allocated if we have rain delays so why not to bowl that ninetieth over?

i think there is alot of wasted time as well that umpires need to be stricter about

how often do we see play not start til 3 or 4 minutes after the scheduled time for a session, thats an over lost. drinks breaks last 2 or 3 minutes longer, another over gone. and then all the 12th man visits for gloves, towels, and ad hoc drinks.

They're talking about the best World eleven on Sky, don't agree with much of it for Tests.

Kohli doesn't really deserve it for Tests yet, not sure I'd play Stokes, and Broad over Morkel every day, my 12, Starc also very hit-and-miss so far, Steyn still deserves it for me.

Cook
Warner
Amla
Smith
Root
Williamson
DeVilliers
Shah
Ashwin
Broad
Anderson
Steyn

What was Sky's ? And criteria for it ?

Cook
Warner
Root
Kohli
Smith
Ab DeVilliers
Ben Stokes
Ravi Ashwin
Yasir Shah
Anderson
Starc

Morkel 12th man

Best current team. Obviously Morkel would play out of the subcontinent.

As far as today is concerned I am torn. We are in a great position and I would love the likes of Hales and Vince to get runs but I still want the game to remain close. I know that England fans would love us to bat Pakistan out the game but a few wickets this morning could add to the excitement of the game.

The 2 run win over Australia in 2005 was one of the most exciting I have seen/experienced.

Can't agree with the Sky team that has no Kane Williamson

Would have him in front of Steve Smith any day of the week and on any surface

Very England bias there unsurprisingly.
I'll join the Williamson bandwagon

Well, that's put the match right back in the melting-pot.

The bowlers look a yard quicker than yesterday

They mentioned on the Verdict that if Pakistan were to win this series, they would go to number One in the rankings

As well as both did yesterday, those two dismissals were just their respective worse ways of getting out. Was tempted to back Pakistan at 10-1 last night, but thought, nah don't be so defeatist, wish I had now.

If they get Root early they'd be odds-on I reckon.

Opener Alex Hales gave a disgruntled fan a partial refund on his match ticket after he complained about England's slow over rate on day three of the third Investec Test against Pakistan.

http://www.skysports.com/cricket/new...-for-over-rate

Well it's a start......

i know i'll probably get accused of being awkward here but the "effective 43-2" doesn't really reflect the game situation

i know purely in terms of the score its accurate but as far as the situation on the field you wouldn't normally be bowling with a 44 over old ball with a score of 43-2 and given we just saw a 120+ partnership for the first wicket it suggests the pitch is playing better than you would expect when a team was 43-2

Hawkeye takes time to produce the track, so if you did that first you would have to wait a minute or two waiting for that, and then if given out still have to check everything else.


If there is a hotspot mark it is conclusive. That it may not be a large mark has no bearing on that. Between the small contact area of a nick and the angle of the bat to the camera a small mark may not immediately be apparent as the eye scans a moving image, so it will naturally take multiple passes.

Conclusive evidence is an objective fact and remains the same no matter how long it takes to find it.

Create artificial constraints to speed up the process if you must, either a set time limit for the review or only allow a fixed number of viewings of a reply. Other sports do that. But do not confuse accuracy with expediency, it is not contingent upon it. You have to prioritize one over the other.


Michael Atherton was fine, but Ramiz Raja and Shane Warne just could not hide their Englishness.

i'm going to completely disagree with all of that

the process is designed to eliminate the onfield umpire making a bad decision, if it takes 30 replays to find that "conclusive" evidence then i maintain the system is then not working as intended

the system is not meant to ensure every decision is 100% correct, it is there to eliminate bad decisions

Why do so many people scoff at the idea of England getting back to number 1?

I'd say, if/when they win this series, and possibly defeat India in the winter, surely its on?