It will be interesting to see if Clarke declares overnight. 332 is getable, as is ten English wickets in a day-long chase. But if he does declare and England win, he will get roasted; as he will if he hangs on too long and England survive on 8 down....
Lead is now 331 runs
BAD LIGHT STOPPED PLAY
Has Cook fallen below the 15overs per hour threshold for the match ?
If so, can he be "banned" from the Durham test ?
Perhaps England should've opened with the likes of Swann and Broad, as was suggested on TMS, against the new ball. Let them take the risk of a few runs to wear it and the Aussie bowlers out before the top order get to the crease; oh and don't waste time with reviews if there's every chance of it going against you.Things are not looking good at Old Trafford.
Austrailia declared this morning, and England are now 27/3 with Cook, Trott and Pieterson all back in the Pavilion, and Clarke making a hash of a catch from Root.
Whatever should occur tomorrow, Clarke will take heart from his magnificent captains' innings that he played at the start of this Test Match, which motivated those fellow Australian batsmen to post such an impressive first innings total and brought some missing pride back into the side.
England should be ashamed of themselves for once again putting up a very poor batting display.
30 odd for 3 is not good enough.
Had the rain not saved us I think we'd have lost that test match.
I feel like saying that people are being much too harsh on England, saying we should be ashamed etc etc. I wonder if anyone has been watching the Ashes Verdict on Sky, I watched Monday's and it really bugged me. Tom Moody and Bob Willis (I really dislike Bob Willis in particular) were chatting, and Tom Moody was saying how he doesn't like Cook's attitude at only focusing on retaining the ashes and that he should be looking to win the whole series. Give the poor bloke a break, let's do the first things first and then move onto winning the series afterwards.
It seemed easy enough to achieve...even late on. I think the dismissal of Wessels just took the fight out of them; the last 6 wkts lost for just 13 runs... Hussey had stab at things but just timed it wrong. That said Notts didn't take the runs when they could have, and as you mention the spinners went for a fair few runs. All in all not a good night...especially after the group matches. Still it was good to be part of the crowd.Witnessed Nottinghamshire crash spectacularly out of t20 this evening. Well played by Essex but we were outplayed in all areas - our spinners took about 90 runs between them and then after a spirited start to the run chase we just couldn't make enough runs. It were absolute rubbish.
Should he have been rested to allow his body to recover from recent events and Graham Onions have been included to have the opportunity to perform on his own county ground, where he will be well aware of how to exploit the wicket there.