West Indies v England, 1st Test, Kingston, Feb 4-8

Also FWIW one of Bellend and Collywobbles needs to make way for Shah in the 2nd test to give him his rightful shot at establishing himself in the team. Think this pitch would've suited Shah down to the ground with his wristy play, very similar to Sarwan's.

Imagine if SiBo went missing for the best part of 2 series (most of SA and all of India)... There would be calls for him to be hung drawn and quartered. Yet because Bell is 'young' and 'oozes quality' we persist with the tiny bollocked fecker! Really is a batsman game...

Windies need to Crack on.

Why should they when they can carry on grinding England down?
Bat till the close, take a lead some 100 runs tonight - lose as few wickets as possible - then blast away tomorrow for a session and a half ..... leaving 4.5 sessions to winkle England out.
Job done.

Well this is a complete surprise tbh. It has never been this slow before so I'm going to give up this predicting conditions lark.

God sake will Broad ever make Gayle offer a stroke?

Boring Hell!!!!!! Come'on the new ball FFS!

Kevin P is President wrote:This game (barring for some serious explosives from Gayle or KP) is heading for a draw i tell thee...

Are any of the decks we're playing on going to induce a result? WIFAN? I thought this would be 1 of the decks most likely too...

From memory Trinidad usually produces a result. And I wont assume this one is a draw yet. All 3 results are still very possible.

May be a bit harsh but do the board wonder why the Windies crowds are diminishing when the curators produce a flat deck and hike the prices up?!

Dont want to generalise but aren't the pitches (historically - past 2 years or so) all slow in the caribbean now? This is worse than watching the Snoozers v Bangla's! very attritional/turgid cricket... Boring shoite!

Did someone say "step on it" ??
Crystal does it in style.
Well Played that man - 5 sixes in the ton.

PS. Panesar is still crap.

Here come the said explosives from Gayle! Monty is under some serious, serious pressure now! Benn is really not that great and yet he has totally outshone him. Swann looks like a shoe in for the second test now surely. Monty has looked totally out of sorts for a while now.

This new ball is going to be so crucial now... If we fail with it we can kiss goodbye to a win and at best play out for a draw... Heads must roll.

Ian Bell!

It must be almost a day since we got a wicket now. Everything's alright though, we're building slowly. Ian Bell will be world-class one day. Presumably when he's the last man on the planet after the Apocalypse. Ian Bell stars in "I Am Legend".

He still makes a pretty 20 and gets out, in case you couldn't be arsed to watch.

Broad gets his man. Played on a bit lower than usual. Nice.

Broad needing Gayle's help to get his wicket !!
Lovely innings ...

Broad!!!!

Hallelujah

Oh fark, it's the fidget arse on now

Bloody hell!

Get Shiv (and Ronnie) and we could be back in this game!

Farking Get Horsey Mahmood aswell!

Broad's still crap.

Broads action looks to be improving.

Oh dear X-man.

Not the best way to keep your test place when several people are scoring runs in domestic cricket.

Well played Ronnie.

Simmons or Barath for the 2nd test WIFAN?

64-2 off 25 overs in that session.

Panesar bowled 4 overs for 26.

It's no coincidence his name is an anagram of pan and arse.