Cricket

Collingwood is sounding in excellent form though.

loooooooooooooool

he must have been smoking the colly weed to get out like that

bad jokes aside, a good knock

even colly has the kp disease.

Century for Bopara. I want 650 and an hour to bowl tonight. No point in letting the wi openers in now and allowing them to make inroads. 1 hour means you get new bowl with fresh bowlers tonight and tomorrow

Given England's ability to take wickets I'd be more inclined to get them in as soon as possible.

cant see a bowling attack without Freddie, on this pitch, bowling the WI for under 400.

i reckon this is out!

i guarantee hawk-eye will say its out whatever happens

if this isnt out fuck the referrals system

GAYLE IS OUT!!!!

top liveblogging there

he aint happy

Gayle is against referrals. (despite the fact it worked in their favour in the 1st test match)

but that was out. Umpire should've given it in the 1st place. If umpires werent so crap you wouldnt need referrals. Didn't need them when Dickie Bird was around.

I'm not quite clear on the referral system - as far as I can tell, you can only use it to see whether its pitched in line and hit in front (where the batsman is offering a stroke). As third umpire you're not allowed to do what the on field umpire can do, that is to use HawkEye to judge where it was going to hit.

I haven't seen this particular referral but I remember in the first Test where the third umpire basically overruled the on field umpire's prediction with his own.

But have I got that wrong? Are they in fact allowed to predict where it would have gone? And if so they might as well bloody have the full predictive HawkEye.

Don't like referrals anyway. Don't trust HawkEye. Snicko and hotstop similarly of limited use. Bloody tv. God what an ignorant peasant I am.

400 is going to be reached by these 2 quite easily.

draw

:(

Love caribbean cricket though

hugs portable DAB radio

TMS from abroad is ace.

sarwan fancies a triple hundred

lara wouldve got more than 400 on this wicket easy

Sidebottom is only bowling at 80-81 mph. No use in these conditions. Dont think he'll be playing next match.

Oh, come on

Nash gets a bad decision in the referral. Harper cocks up again. Holding is furious. Why dont they let the 3rd umpire see the predictive view so that they can judge if its going over the stumps? Crazy.

a lynch mob has just gone to the match referees room. I assume they want Harper removed and propably an end to the experiment.
Sarwan just carrying on as normal btw.

tbh i thought it was out until we saw hawkeye. So im not sure you can blame harper when he cant see the predictive path. However what athers says is that he has to be sure it was out to overule and i dont see how they can do that without hawkeye, so therefore it shouldve been not out.

Harper has a five-for btw in referrals in this innings.
Sarwan reaches 150 and isnt gonna get out today.

As I understood it, the point of the referral is only to see if the umpire's decision was crazy. And only to overrule if it was. Like a judicial review in law - the court doesn't replace the government's decision with its own, it just looks at whether the decision was irrational.

Using it to second-guess the guy on the spot is no good.

I'd rather the 3rd umpire was given hawkeye, hotspot,snickometer and given a role as important as the 2 on the field. Use technology properly.

sarwan not out at the end of the day. close to his double ton.
WI 398-5 at close of play.

so west indies to make 800 and bowl england out?

Would you push on to a really high score, or declare tonight and have a few overs at the openers?

wi will bat on to make sure they cant lose then go into the last test with a similar pitch so again thy cant lose and win the series

It's a pity they're using this ploy of pitches being batter friendly to ensure they dont lose because the trend could end up killing cricket with bore draws while 20/20 draws in more.

everywhere does it.

Sri Lanka 1st Innings
644 for 7 (155.2 overs)

Sri Lanka 2nd Innings
144 for 5 (31.0 overs)

Pakistan 1st Innings
765 for 6 (248.5 overs)

exactly what i was meaning

it's a trend I dont like. Luckily it shouldn't happen here due to the weather and groundsmen who take pride in their pitches for being good pitches that can still produce a result. Kudos to the NZ groundsman last year who didn't buckle under the pressure from cricketing authorities.

Saying on the radio that these are the only two matches ever where a side has scored 600 then conceded a lead

and a declaration. will england collapse(again)under pressure and go 2-0 down?

What's your thoughts on this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A48093069

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/02032009/58/study-belgians-invented-cricket.html

lol o rly

Shah out. Bopara for the next test then? Harmison and Khan in for sidey and shah? Gotta go with 5 bowlers and sidey aint fit, shouldnt have played this match. Jimmy not done any better either tbh. Both those guys rely on swinging conditions otherwise they dont do well.

if they do go with bopara hes gotta be at 5 and kp at 3 colly at 4. Shah isnt a no3 either so if hes picked play him at 5. But bopara scored the ton while shah hasnt looked at ease at all. Hes vulnerable and always looking like he will get out.
So shah will probably still play at 3...

No doubt louis will say shah needs a run etc you cant drop him, but why pick a guy who isnt scoring in a couple of matches in place of a guy who scored a ton in 1?
Shah isnt a no3. If he plays its gotta be at 5, and bopara has a ton there so i say go with him.
Whoever plays @ 3 in the ashes is whoever scores the most runs in the county season early on. Rule noone in or out.

ps nothing against shah, but Bopara took his chance.

They can't drop Shah. Well, if they did, it would be ludicrously unfair. It's seemingly counter-intuitive to drop someone after a ton but I'd rather see Shah in there than Bopara. I still think England can prosper with a 4-man attack, though, as long as they're the right 4 men. Khan in for Sidebottom would be the obvious. Anderson's position dependent on the wicket. Rashid or Panesar should really get a game if there's obviously going to be little help for the seamers. We'll see.

Aha, xposts, you anticipate me. Well, Shah got a good 50 in one game before being unfortunately run out, and then gave his wicket away in the second innings, rightfully looking for quick runs. In this game, he's been done by the spinner, which is odd as he's a good player of spin, but you can't drop someone on that basis IMO. Bopara took his chance, but it was probably the easiest chance he'll ever have. Tired bowlers, flat deck, almost no opposition.