Should be an interesting morning,alarm set for 330 am.Anybody heard any weather or pitch reports for the morning?.
The England team is still up in the air really although this is my selection.
1,Cook
2,Compton
3,Trott
4,KP
5,Bell
6,Bairstow
7,Prior
8,Broad
9,Swann
10,Bresnan
11,Anderson

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My team would be

Cook
Compton
Trott
KP
Bell
Bairstow
Prior
Swann
Broad/Bresnan
Jimmy
Monty

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I would be happy with that, but we all know they'll go with this

Cook
Compton
Trott
KP
Bell
Patel
Prior
Swann
Broad
Jimmy
Bresnan

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Neon,

Bresnan coming in at 7 would have me worried, tail would look too long for my liking. Bairstow coming in at 6 is a must IMO. However as Hazsa says it looks like Patel at 6 which doesn't convince me at all.

Considering the form of most of our batsmen over the past year the last thing I want to see is Patel coming in at 6, if the top order struggles that lower middle order could be exposed.

I'm still not sure wether I'd prefer three seamers or Panesar in a four man attack but it looks like we'll get both. Interesting few days ahead.

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Picking Patel at 6 for me is nothing more than a defensive move by England. On the assumption that we're in India to win games Monty is a must. Patel is a luxury England can do without. Square pegs in round holes and all that. Pick your best team, not the team you think is best for the conditions. The great Aus team and Windies team picked their best team and worked in things around that.

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Bearded,

Spot on. As Michael Holding would say if your four best bowlers cant take 20 wickets what use is a fifth. Sends out the wrong messages for me.

Patel might of impressed in the warm ups but that has no bearings on what's to come and to add to that what's the standard of bowling been like? I'm happy for him to prove me wrong and hope he does but I don't particularly rate him and him coming in at 6 makes me nervous that the batting looks a little fragile.

Well I look at it like this, what batsman in India's top six is worried by Patel. And if they are worried India have bigger problems than us.

frankly speaking patel has hit his peak way too early. against ashwin ojha and yadav he will be found out. play a proper batsman and a proper bowler not one that hangs on the middle.

I'm looking forward to some good humoured banter now that the real cricket is on...

Can we try to praise the opposition instead of excuses for losses though.

Cheers and good luck to one an all.

"Can we try to praise the opposition instead of excuses for losses though."

Naff off

That's the trouble hazsa....everyone blame's their own team for performing bad when they lose....when 9 out of 10 times they were beat by a better team but are to weak to admit it...

India win the toss. $hit

Yeah this pitch isn't offering much.

Pitch might be flat but the bowling has been poor. No consistency in line or length

this pitch is flat but anderson is overreacting. needs to concentrate and realise the batsman he is facing is going to score a couple of boundaries in a over but provide chances as well

Yeah, I thought the same Viru. I would be tempted to get Swann on shortly.

yh also just realised. england have missed the trick. played 3 pacers when dhoni clearly said that pacers will not get help at all

So frustrating. A year ago you could almost guarantee that Broad and Jimmy would just probe away at off stump, move the odd one and give the batsmen nothing.

Since the West Indies series its been pretty ordinary tbh

hafza its natural and all teams have been fairly average. i blame so much cricket to be the factor. have never seen india prepare more for a test series than this in the last couple of years.

sehwag for example looks so much composed and is not just throwing his bat like he did in the past 1 year