That was some innings from Crawley. His timing, all around the wicket, was exquisite.

umpires are walking out

WOW, the second Spitfire pass was spine-tingling!

Pakistan are getting a bashing here

flayed and flayed again!

Wonderful stuff, lovely knock from Crawley, Buttler looking good too.

WOW, the second Spitfire pass was spine-tingling!

Amazing machines.

<Political rant on a non-political thread bore>

But combining a Spitfire with the NHS is in pretty poor taste.

</political rant on a non-political thread bore>

I won’t do it again.

I’m looking forward to watching the highlights tonight. It sounds like Crawley has played a truly great Test innings. Especially as Pakistan started out trying to reel him in with wide bowling, hoping he’d be nervous about trying to get to 200. Sounds very much like his game/series awareness led him to think “You’ve got to win this game lads, so it is your own time you’re wasting here” and he didn’t rise to it. When you’re starting to dictate tactics to the fielding side you have them on the ropes. Then you grind them into the dirt, tire their bowlers, keep them in the field.

One of the defining characteristics of Stokes’ knock at Headingley was that it was the only the first or second time the aussie bowlers had to really put their shoulder to the wheel. The last day (which I was lucky enough to be there for) started out with the bowlers fresh, but they flagged quickly having been made to work the day before.

Why are England still batting?!

demoralization

Why are England still batting?!

I think Root is probably trying to piss them off. England are 1-0 up and don’t really have to win this game and/or run any risks trying to do it.

I disagree with sending the bowlers in now, though. If I was Naseem or Shaheen Shah I would bounce the shit out of Broad to prompt the declaration if Root could be made to worry about possible injuries to the bowlers.

It’s an odd thing to say about a batsman who has just scored 152 but that was slightly concerning innings from Buttler, one of the most destructive batsman in the history of the game. Once it was obvious England were going to get past 500 he didn’t seem able to become destructive and ended with a bit of a lame dribble of runs for the last 100 deliveries faced.

Anderson making it talk…

Will Jimmy hit 600 this match?!

too **** good!

What a day!

Excellent last 90 minutes there, Pakistan trying to hang on for the close, and Anderson Archers and Broad pinging the ball round

Interesting suggestion from Warne, keep Jimmy for home tests and use him as a bowling coach on tour. Not sure if Jimmy would go along with that mind!

Oh Jimmy! And that last one won’t go towards his stats. Is it meant to be this summer?!

Catches win matches…another drop off jimmy, I fear these will be costly.

England management have had enough of these drops and Collingwood is now in the field. No messing around.

Collingwood is now in the field

🙂

Whoop!

(Shame he couldn’t get it 6 balls sooner for the record)

Yes Jimmy!!!

🙂 🙂 🙂

Outstanding achievement.

Good to finally see some play today, even if it ends in a draw. And an astounding achievement from Anderson to get his 600th.

…and that’s it. It was good to have Test cricket over the summer, and the second Pakistan Test aside, it has to be seen as pretty successful, all things considered.

Player of the summer for England? Pakistan player of the tournament?

Pakistan win toss and put England in to bat. May escape the rain

This Banton lad can hit a ball can’t he?

Can you reserve such comments about a batters form for the Pakistan players

And I’ll refrain from suggesting we’ll miss the rain

LIVE CRICKET ON THE BEEB!

Loving the Zaltz on Sunday afternoon bbc 1

Pakistan looking like getting a big total here. Babar Azam is soooo good.

I spoke too soon he’s rubbish!

Australia BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Win the toss and bowl first, some big names back for England

16 off the first over!

They’ve slowed a bit in the last 2 overs

Ooh a four

Gah. Come on Moeen we need a good un from you

These Aussie spinners are very annoying! Watching a T20 World Cup watch along thing earlier and Bumble was saying his theory that the worse the bowler the better you do at T20 😛

But we’ve got the best white ball spinner in the world and Moeen

Edit. I wrote that before your edit 😣

Edit 2. Ah fudge