& the top scorer in the England first innings was?

Another successful review against a Dharmasena decision !

Kumar has had a mare in this test

Just woke up, are the spinners bowling well.
see Ali bowled well in the morning though with the new ball.
looks like england got a crucial period coming up with the new ball, need to take 5 or 6 wickets with it.

Wow surprised BCCI agreed to the DRS.
be surprised if BCCI don't like it this time, but then again we were saying the same thing in 2011 with all the reports of Hotspot being 99% accurate and it turned out not to be great technology in picking stuff up, so huge pressure on DRS to get everything right for this series.

Although looking at it now not that many gremlins in the technology with even the umpire call part of it fixed.

Stokes gets a wicket.
Rahim goes for 48.
Crucial part of the game, england need to get rid of the lower order quickly as possible.

England 1.90
Bangladesh 2.50
Draw 7.50

before the wicket england were 2.50 and Bangladesh 1.90.

think this will kill the argument that batty is a better spinner than ali or rashid.
Batty didn't really bowl that well today, got milked quite easily and wasn't that threatening, Ali and Rashid was so much better in creating chances but they still need to sort out the bad balls.
but today probably showed that no one is really better than Ali or Rashid in county cricket in terms of spinners.
Still surprised leach didn't tour could have bowled loads of overs and have experience in these conditions.

Bring back Monty. I'm joking of course

Looks set to be an intriguing test. Hopefully we bat better in the second innings and don't end up getting bowled out for under 200

Tamim iqbal really loves playing against England 7 test fifties in 9 innings.
Very impressive considering he scored 2 hundreds in england as well.

I am always delighted when England take wickets .


I will check the scorecard and get back to you

Edit...It was Ali.

as in not Ian Bell?

Massive session for England tomorrow, they can't afford a slow start or a poor day.
At best they looking at Bangladesh getting close to 300, with no or small lead or deficit which would make it an one innings shoot out, but the scary part for England is that any lead for Bangladesh is likely to be worth double considering if Bangladesh get a 50 run lead, then England are looking at 300 runs to be competitive in the last innings which will be very hard to get in the 3rd innings.
Any lead over 100 is likely to be impossible for England to make up unless they somehow get 400+ in the 3rd innings.

Although at the same time bangladesh need to make sure they can get another 150 runs and can't afford to give a lead to england since an deficit would mean england get a slim advantage but really bangladesh are closer to being in an comfortable position than England are at the moment.
considering England need what 5 wickets within the next 30-40 runs to be in top whereas Bangladesh need what another 30-40 runs to edge ahead in the game.

Also want to add how apparent it was that ali and Rashid couldn't bowl more than 14-15 overs in these conditions.
they got tired and couldn't really put the same revs or action in the ball and their overs suffered a bit.
could be very crucial this winter considering Mehedi could bowl all day, Ashwin and Jadeja the same.

Although the conditions in Bangladesh are so tough and it will get easier in India when the winter starts and England got a decent schedule, North first and then working they way down to the south.
Chennai wouldn't even be that humid or hot.

13 overs for Rashid and 19 overs for Ali is not that great really considering they were the two main wicket threats.
Batty was ok but not sure he should be the stock bowler in the side.
really Ali should be bowling most of the overs in the day, with Batty and Rashid rotating on the other side.
with the pace men giving Ali a rest when the ball is reversing.

Pace men probably bowled more than they liked but they provided the maidens and looked deadly when the ball was reversing a bit.

The spinners took the wickets but the quicks were far more economical. The quicks may need to bowl more in the 4th innings if we need to make it more difficult for them to score.

Moeen is a better bowler with the hard ball, when it goes soft he becomes hittable Cook should throw him the new ball tomorrow and he will do well for us

TBH the quicks might be more economical but they not really going to take wickets or actually look threatening unless the ball reverses and when the ball reverse the asian batsman will just block and block since they know the pace men can't bowl more than 4 overs in a trot.

TBH all the spinners will be extra deadly with the new ball.
TBH Ali bowls well but he hasn't really bowled many overs so doesn't actually know how to bowl at the same spot all the time consistently, for a front line spinner Ali accuracy is shocking especially for a finger spinner.
Actually makes me laugh when people started calling the Bangladeshi spinners inexperienced considering in reality Ali, Rashid are inexperienced since I bet the 19 year old bowled more overs than ali did in his career same with Islam.

Mehedi even said yesterday that bowling 33 over wasn't a big deal since he does that all the time for his domestic side and loves bowling in tandem with spinners, he basically said he tried to do what he normally does in domestic cricket and it worked.

Saying that thought it was very odd Rashid didn't play the first test against pakistan in lords.
Considering he was landing the ball very well in the odi against sri lanka and he really needed to bowl more overs and not less, would have been perfect if he played and got confidence and worked on his accuracy but the long break in playing games plus not actually bowling much for Yorkshire basically meant that he lost all the good rhythm he had in the odi.
can't really see rashid doing much in Test unless he can work on his rhythm and cut out the bad deliveries most likely he will be like Tahir a white ball specialist until he can fix this.

Really the most disappointing aspect was Batty since I assumed he was picked so Rashid doesn't bowl much in the first innings and then Rashid could bowl in the 2nd innings where he will be more deadly and batsman less likely to hit the bad balls away,

Forgot to add this earlier, but with BCCI finally joining DRS will ICC start paying for the system and make sure the DRS is uniform in all series.
For me that was the biggest issue I had with DRS and ICC never really gave a clear answer on it, still suspect Bangladesh will not have drs in home series unless the big 3 or maybe SA tour but even then it is a question mark.
plus Pak, WI, Sri lanka home series DRS is often crap with no Hotspot, real snicko and pretty much missing half the gadget or use the cheapest cameras possible.

it is so clear the difference between cheap DRS and the full DRS.

Actually in the current series, Hotspot not even available.

Then the cost is a matter as well since the next hurdle will be when Sky, Channel 9, indian networks and the others start passing the cost to the home board and then ICC.
Can't really see the tv broadcasters continuing to pay the high cost for it especially now when Sky, Channel 9 and Indian networks will want the production to get cheaper.

lol this blog made me laugh.
http://www.thefulltoss.com/england-c...-2-chittagong/

Actually quite scary to think how far behind england would be in this game without Ali and Bairstow and I wouldn't back them to repeat the feats again most of the time, so the top order need to improve massively 100/5 isn't good enough especially away from home.

TBH Bhav needs his own thread

yeah really do, actually need to take a break from cricket, anyway back to work tomorrow so no more post till Sunday lol.

He really is poor. How could he be sure before raising his finger. HE's just guessing and hoping that DRS will sort it out


You can't keep blocking if you are going for a win.

cracking start to the morning for us

moeen gets shakib just the second ball, extremely reckless from shakib to be dancing down the pitch like that so early tho

hopefully we can get thru the tail fairly quick and get a first innings lead