ebbs and flows of Test match cricket are what makes it such a beautiful game

by Dillinger

The ebbs and flows of Test match cricket are what makes it such a beautiful game. Yesterday evening, England were down and out. Today, they will be the happier of the two sides.

It was about as a good a day as possible for England. The seamers were very good, and then backed up by Cook and Hales at the top of the order. Cook has looked in serious form this summer.

Hales with a determined 50. He was in full on concentration mode, leaving anything outside off, and playing with a much straighter bat. It is, however, worth noting that he was chosen in part to open with Cook to be the aggressive partner. As it turns out, Cook has been the dasher in their partnership. In their 19 innings opening the batting, Cook has a strike-rate of 56.36, while Hales is at 45.16. Nasser made a great observation during the broadcast that Hales gets bogged down for long periods as he is so determined on not getting himself out that he has no release shot to rotate the strike, but then he goes through spurts where he hits 3 or 4 boundaries in quick succession.

Watching Sohail Khan bowl at the end was painful. Every joint and muscle in his body was barking. He was moving ever so gingerly, the rigours of not playing a Test match in almost 5 years.

Not so sure on those sky blue hats. Certainly pale in comparison to these beauties:



For my money, nothing comes close to the majesty of those wide brim floppy hats.

The up's and down's of test match cricket is certainly something that you don't get in many other sports. I said myself on another thread that I thought that England would be looking at making sure they don't lose the match as I thought it was slipping away from them. Now though, after that last day you'r right and I think they now have the slight advantage over the Pakistani's.

A day or two halves. Pakistan had control for large parts of it, before a wonderful partnership between Bairstow and Moeen Ali has put England in a commanding position, as they now lead by 311 runs.

Poor James Vince. It's deja vu all over again for him. He continues to get himself in and then continues to get himself out to the same shot. Gary Ballance has similarly been undone with the same delivery three innings in a row by Yasir Shah.

Moeen Ali and Bairstow gave England some real impetus just before tea, which then carried over into the last session. By which point, Pakistan's bowlers were completely knackered. England took full advantage and runs flowed.

Crowd was magnificent today. They sang loud throughout. A great atmosphere.

It will be very interesting to see what Cook does in the morning. For me, I would declare overnight. While batting conditions on the last day at Edgbaston have been historically friendly, no team has scored 300+ to win a match here. Batting average in the 4th innings is 30.33. If England are to win, they will need the full 90 overs to bowl Pakistan out.

However, given Cook's rather conservative mindset, I'd expect him to come out and have a thrash for an hour or so in the morning, get the lead up to 360 and then look to attack with the ball for the last 75 or so overs of the day.