At this point im hoping for the umpire not to give the players out, then ill know its out

So 196 overs left. What is England's plan?

- Bowl Australia out at lunch tomorrow. 100 runs leads 166 overs left.
- Bat 80 overs. Set Australia 340 from 84 overs.

?

None except Warner I believe have ever done it in a match. Can't imagine spending any reasonable percentage of your training resources on trying to hit the other way.

FWIW as kids we used to try and bat left handed mucking around in the nets. I was a reasonable nick and nudger (think a fatter Allan Border) but a friend of mine was unreal left handed, we eventually convinced him to go out and bat left handed and he made a run a ball 50, raised his bat, and took guard right handed the next ball and whacked that away for four as well.

(as an aside, walking out to bat practicing left handed shots, before taking guard right handed is A+ banter and I used to do it all the time when in a **** mood). Unfortunately it usually ended with me facing shorts balls and fending off to the cordon but it was worth a try.

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Smith merked

That was brutal.

As an aside, if you are having trouble with a bowler you might as well try and do something stupid with your positioning of your feet instead (in Ali's case).

Bat two stumps outside off or half a meter outside the stumps and try and hit everything. Just do something different without resorting to batting the other way.

Amazing review whilst walking from Smith. Gotta make them check the no ball.

No one scores 4 consecutive centuries in England.

funny old game this. each england wicket falling makes us more likely to win

England should go all out - assuming the last three matches have positive outcomes there's little difference between drawing and losing.

Somebody was ****ing about with it in the Leics/Derbys T20 I was watching the other day, then again that's not proper cricket so they can do that

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of the new concussion substitute law that will allow Labuschagne to bat in the second innings in place of Smith.
Good law IMO

bit of a shame that we wont get a proper go at the aussies. cant complain too much given the game situation yesterday, but if we'd put up 40 or so more runs by now we could have a wham and a bash after lunch and stick the aussies in needing 250 off 55 overs or something like that

looks like we've hit the accelerator

nvm, we have not

b2b 6s lol, maybe we have

looooooooool stokes just got one in the midsection and exclaimed very loudly on the stump mike OOOH ME DICK

lead is 240, aussies would have to face about 50 overs, almost time to declare. let stokes get his 100 (currently 98) and then maybe two more overs of trying to hit 6s every ball

48 overs, aus need 267

bookies think we've a 1 in 8 chance

jofra mowing through the convicts here

I'm a cricket noob but Joe root seems way too conservative here. Not playing an aggressive field when aus need nearly 6 an over cannot be correct.

Has anyone developed an xW for cricket yet? Would be interesting to see Jofra's this session.

England declared 10 overs too late for mine. Will see if that matters at the end.

Pretty impossible to do.

Alright time for Marcus Harris to replace Bancroft now for the next test.

need a wicket every 5 overs to finish this off

woulda left aussies needing 200 from 60 overs, **** that