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[ppccopener]

Heaven help us wtf happened!!!

Good call on the forum who predicted Overton would out score Vince ! 

[alexhilly1492]

What have I woken up to?

[skip1973]

Gee England have problems with those Kookaburra balls don't they.

[golders]

Oh dear,are we heading back to the 1990's?!

[golders]

Can't believe they dropped Vince- he was always bound to score his maiden ton...

[Biggie Smalls]

Loving being able to watch almost the full days play before switching over to oz vs s.a .
If eng lose this then the best they xan hope for is a drawn series 1-1....makes me wonder , when was the last time eng lost a test series to nz ?

[Kulli]

I've nothing against D/N tests, in fact I like that it's a bit forwards thinking, but are they still only able to get 10k people through the gates for an opening day of a series in comfortably the biggest city in the country, that's piss poor.

[Mister Le Chiffre]

I had the laptop setup for the coverage but fell asleep. Got up just after 3.30am and saw the Kiwis 8/0 from 8 overs. I assumed there must've been a delayed start. How wrong I was. What the hell happened?

[Mister Le Chiffre]

All that aside Kane Williamson is a little bit special

[ppccopener]

I have a question...

Instead of the slow head shaking is it time to really start paniking about the test side?

Root is not the right captain as I have posted many times, but we are going backwards under Bayliss as a test team

One dayers-great-we are doing well, but we are not improving, in fact if honest we are getting worse!

[Mister Le Chiffre]

Much rather Farbrace took over the Test side. Bayliss is a limited overs specialist as his CV indicates

[Mister Le Chiffre]

Last 20 Tests Cook has been a liability again. Aside from 243 against an abject Windies side and 244* on a cement pitch in Melbourne the other 18 matches his average is 26. That's dreadful for a senior player

[billyb]

This was our side on the NZ tour back in 2012-13. We've lost great players, but we're definitely heading backwards.
That batting side was talented, yes- but it had a seriously strong spine to it, too. I don't see players putting a high price on their wicket in our team anymore.
Cook, Root, Broad and Anderson remain. Have we made advances in any of the other positions, really?

Cook
Compton
Trott
Pietersen
Bell
Root
Prior
Broad
Finn
Anderson
Panesar

[Neon Cricket]

Last 20 Tests Cook has been a liability again. Aside from 243 against an abject Windies side and 244* on a cement pitch in Melbourne the other 18 matches his average is 26. That's dreadful for a senior player

"Apart from the 2 double tons including an unbeaten 244* in the Ashes..."

Are we really doing this? Comical

[procricket]

It is it really is.

Ben Stokes playing as a batsman only is not great.  However good he is he a 1 in 5 player and you need a bit more at 5 or a top line batsman (yes he box office and yes a match winner but not as a batsman alone for me).

However you need a bit more from the guys in front of him to infact all of them our batting has been woeful for a long time. Mark Stoneman is not good enough top socre of 54 in 14 innings is not what your after.

Bairstow is wasted at 6 or 7.

Moeen Ali should not be playing

We do not have enough specalists because cricket has gone to the utility  players as dictated by one day cricket.

We also need to draft in a quick soon or speed one through the system.

As for the batting well where to start i would suggest not many of them can really say over the last dozen tests they have done enough.