England v India, 4th Test, The Oval, 18-22 August, 2011

Going to piss down all day.

Jimmy fit and playing, according to cricinfo.

Seems a crazy risk in a three man bowling attack on a traditional belter in a dead rubber, but there you go - I'm sure it won't blow up in England's faces...

England (unchanged) win the toss and bat.

Kumar out. RP Singh in.

Odds of England collapsing in a heap against an attack shorn of their best bowler and drafting in a bloke who hasn't played cricket in months...?

Possibility. Bit of cloud cover and the inevitable relaxing after the hard work is done...

It's going to piss down. Reckon England will only have to survive at best an hour today.

Then come back and bat tomorrow when it's going be hot and sunny.

Warm and not raining, I should've said. This is England we're talking about.

I'm expecting a 'gift your wickets away' kind of day...

Dello wrote:It's going to piss down. Reckon England will only have to survive at best an hour today.

Then come back and bat tomorrow when it's going be hot and sunny.

England saved by the weather again.

taipan wrote:

Dello wrote:It's going to piss down. Reckon England will only have to survive at best an hour today.

Then come back and bat tomorrow when it's going be hot and sunny.

England saved by the weather again.

I can only assume that's why they've batted. You'd think these are good conditions to get into the Indian batting line-up early doors. But if they've seen the forecast and predicted hardly any play today but dry and sunny tomorrow, England might've looked a bit silly putting India in.

I remember when RP Singh was a promising young swing bowler who could crank it up to 90mph. 78 MPH trundler these days, and he's still only 26. What's happened?

Meh... he could 'crank it up' but he's always been essentially a (31 year old) Ryan Sidebottom pace.

Yet another Indian pace bowler who started off with all the promise in the world and has deteriorated into a lazy, injury prone piece of crap medium pacer.

Henry wrote:Yet another Indian pace bowler who started off with all the promise in the world and has deteriorated into a lazy, injury prone piece of crap medium pacer.

Yeah, definitely. This time four years ago he was the daddy.

One would have thought the MRF pace academy would've helped maintain these bowler's promise. Obviously not.

Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel......


Not one of them is a better bowler now than they were when they started their careers.

Wasim Akram- Why do people choose to propose at the top of the London Eye? Why don't they propose at a normal place?

Sourav Ganguly- Yeah, the only place to go is downwards after that.

Henry wrote:Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel......


Not one of them is a better bowler now than they were when they started their careers.

[buckeroo] Akin to the West Indies attack of the 80's[/quote]

Henry wrote:Yet another Indian pace bowler who started off with all the promise in the world and has deteriorated into a lazy, injury prone piece of crap medium pacer.

Gone from a slim, wiry bowler to a fat knacker as well.

Seems to be India's main strength: eating.

To be fair, they do make some bloody lovely food...

Gosh, this a subdued game. Even for a dead rubber.

Looks like the rain will hit during lunch. Doubtful whether it will stop before the scheduled resumption, though.

Once it arrives, it'll be set in for the day.

Been hacking it down here from the go - and it's all headed East.

They've done well to get a session in.

Dello wrote:Gosh, this a subdued game. Even for a dead rubber.

This can be told be the lack of action in this thread - absolute apathy. Not a jot of anything dynamic. This thread is full of military medium, up-and-down dobbing, no-reverse-cowboy-just-a-two-pump-dump-missionary, if-this-was-a-game-show-it-would-be-Eggheads, lollipop, jinger-janger load of dross - 8 pages! (bar my lovely "you don't have to go to Cricinfo" build-up posts)

Well, a 'massive' 9 pages now.

Aww how fweet:

Salil: "all the smug condescending diatribe being written about India, would love India to turn this around, think of India as work in progress...not a week goes by when we dont hear reference 1966 world cup win...perspective please"

I spend much of the session absent-mindedly fiddling around with a little plastic tag that came off a new pair of slacks.

Occasionally I'd look up - the odd boundary, Strauss getting sconned - but then I'd pine for the plastic tag and get back into it.

Brass Monkey wrote:Aww how fweet:

Salil: "all the smug condescending diatribe being written about India, would love India to turn this around, think of India as work in progress...not a week goes by when we dont hear reference 1966 world cup win...perspective please"

I think we'd all love to see India turn around a 3-0 deficit in one Test, if only for curiosity value. Can that even be done? Would have to play flipping well, I'd reckon.

"Work in progress". Half the team are pensioners.