England v Australia, 2nd Test, Lords, 28 June - 2 July, 2023

Crawleyey could follow his forbears and be 'Creepy'

Perhaps Peter's "samey" comment will prove salient, espesh if a few English wickets fall to spin.

Poms stick The Tongue in.

The headlines writers will have a field day ... can see the headline now, alongside a photo when he nicks off

"Tongue pokes - out!"

Tongue in a pickle ... etc

Tongue tied - if he gets the last run/wicket and it finishes level (pretty remote chance but…)

Wasn't thinking that far, but I suppose the fourth mainline quick(ish) also suggests pretty strongly that - as in the 1st Test - Stokes is considered not yet fit enough to bowl except in extremis a couple of overs or so.

Tongue hard pressed.

Reminds me I have to keep my eye out for my mothers antique contraception designed for pressing tongue. I like tweaking old recipes or receipts as some Irish elders refer to them.

Pleased for the bowlers the Lords slope has a greenish tinge, even if the weather does not sound conducive to swing and seam.

Good toss to win, “We’ll have a bat.”

Off field I’d enjoy having an ear on the chats and harrummpphhffs from the MCC members about the ICEC Report.

As someone observed in one of the rags, it was interesting to see a bloke famed for racist tweets abusing a Muslim cricketer.

Not that the ICEC Report should bring comfort to SA, India and especially Australia.

Antique contraception, not contraption? Haha.

I don't know if it'll happen in this test, but I can't wait to see how Bazball looks if/when 3 cheap wickets fall early.

the countdown is on to another sleepless few days

Re: "Bazball" (a term McCullum and Stokes dislike, and avoid - make of that what you will) - and what happens if there's a collapse?

It depends what you mean.

As I understood it, the idea is to play enterprising cricket, unshackled from a traditional English cramping/neurotic fear of failure and the boot at first available opportunity. And to give the spectators a spectacle, something to savour & remember, rather than a cramped pedestrian dawdle. Batting, but also bowling & fielding - including more "positive" attacking field settings and strategies. Three or four boundaries and a six conceded to an opposition top order bat, followed by their dismissal, seen as a net win, not grounds for taking the bowler off and discarding them.

Whereas, as I understood it, the idea is NOT to flay, slash, snick and slog at everything in sight, to go berserk, to play T20 for 5 days (or 2, if you get smashed) - or to cluster eight men tightly around the opposition bat at every available opportunity.

Although the last Test saw weird examples of recklessness from a few already "well in" with 19-40 to their name, I can't imagine Stokes or less till McCullum would regard that as "Bazball accomplished".

Far from it. Close tussles, purposive approach: yes, definitely. Suicide cricket, no way.

So then:

What will happen if England are 3 or 4 down for 15-20 runs? I imagine they would try to do what Stokes tried to do in the second innings. Retrench a bit. Be wary. But still look to be resourceful, positive, go for runs and then wickets where they can be found.

Because headless cricket ain't Bazball, or whatever else you call it.

It's meant as a philosophy of cricket - not a manual of world's most harebrained harakiri methods.

In some ways Bazball is a simple update of the positive cricket played by Oz and the Windies of old, going back to to the 1960/61 Tour.

Beyond the marketing hoopla and snake oil, what is revolutionary is that it is England taking on a positive cricket mode.

That is certainly revolutionary.

It’s strange that some of the most suicidal batting we’ve seen during the Bazball era has been from Stokes himself, especially last summer, he seemed to be going to extremes to set the tone.

Obviously if we’re up against it now we won’t go into our shells and subside as we did under previous regimes. No 2-runs-an-over Adelaide ‘06 capitulations, we’ll go down swinging, might as well be bowled out for 50 as 150, and we might just pull off a Headingley ‘81 or ‘19 if a couple of them get their eye in.

"Go down swinging" sounds uneasily like a lime pit.

Covers down at this juncture due to drizzle in the propinquity of Lord's.

Propinquity is a very fine word.

on a fuliginous morning

Poms inserting the Aussies

Interesting that there is still no Wood. That press box which I was lucky enough to see inside during a tour of the joint looks like a giant clock radio,

Bairstow with the stevedore role.

But will he catch owt else?

Drat. Rain

Poor catching costing England.

Batting doesn't seem so difficult atm.  Justified decision at the toss but England's attack looks a bit pedestrian at times.

Tongue-lashing!

Not good Ussie!

Only good ball from Tongue flummoxed Ussie.

Advantage a bit Oz’s way. England would have wanted at least 2. Bowling wasn’t great, aside from Broad who was unlucky. Slobbo was military medium.

Even with the protest and brief rain delay the over rate is ordinary and I can see the Poms getting more points deducted. Jo might have to bowl a lot of overs as penance for the dropped catch.