Cook and Prior are playing really well. Both should have been out lbw much earlier in their innings, but I guess that is Karma for India refusing to use DRS.

I think if our middle order can get it's act together, maybe bring in Morgan and/or Bairstow, and we bring in Monty for Patel, then we have a chance of winning the series, not if we lose tomorrow, mind.

tbh ahmedabad is the easiest pitch you would get to win or draw in this series. poor record of india in this pitch suggests that. this pitch doesnt have bounce and despite that i thought the spinners overall bowled well, and if it wasnt for the cleanbowled's we wouldnt have seen so many wickets at the first place. the ball is barely carrying, so if india do win tomorrow, then other matches should be much more easier for us.

Cook once again proving why he's the best player in the world by some distance.

He doesn't get a huge amount of acknowledgement or hype from around the world but that's okay. He can just keep scoring a ridiculous amount of runs for us as regular as clockwork.

He's got many years ahead of him as well. It's quite scary to think, if he keeps performing so well and it doesn't look like he's about to stop, how many runs he could score.

"other matches should be much more easier for us..."

Yeah, wanna bet? I bet you don't beat us 4-0 like we turned your lot over!!

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4-0 in india is not possible with most players having barely played 20 matches in total.

the likes of kohli, pujara, ashwin yadav, ojha are our leading players and they have very little experiance. and yet we have in the most part of the game outplayed ur team. lets be honest day 1 and 2 were slightly harder to bat on this pitch and this is when we had to face swann.

dr we shud win but not sure by how much

I reckon it'll finish 1-1. Indian pitches are made for big scores.

This is a series between two average teams so naturally the home team will win. It'll be 2-0.

Playing in the subcontinent will help cook's already impressive average no end.

so all of a sudden england becomes average? looool so what r ur bets on the ashes then?

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wouldn't be surprised if there was some foul play from the Indian groundsman. India declare on 521 and then England all out for 191. clearly something fishy was going on.

so what r ur take on england losing 3-0 to pakistan and 2-0 to SA. any foul play there?

possibly, you never know. England are the best team in the world, no.1 and everyone wants to bring them down.

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Cheers mate

England aren't an average team. True, we were outplayed by Pakistan in alien conditions. Against South Africa we were unlucky not to draw the series. In the second test we would have won if one of the days had not been completely washed out. In the third test we were agonisingly close to winning, but lost by 40 runs. Home advantage is always crucial, and in the sub-continent so is winning the toss. We've already seen that we are capable of learning from our mistakes (well apart from th middle order). I am sure the remaining three tests will be close affairs, especially as Monty will be playing from now on, and with Finn, our fastest seamer, to come back, we will improve. It's going to be a fascinating series.

If England survive this test match, it will be one hell of an achievement. Also viru, this pitch has been re-laid this year from soil from Mumbai pitch. Expect same conditions in next match too

Trueblue,

Agree with you about toss in these conditions. Also, England have shown in the 2nd innings that with abit of application and feet movement, they aren't all that bad. Maybe the Ajmal factor and all the talk prior to this series about spin got to their heads in 1st innings.

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.... ..8bit has got me in stitches.

In the sub continent England are very average. Don't quite understand why you are surprised? Our trips to the UAE and previous toils in India prove this. Not enough spin and guile in the bowling dept (only Swann looks lethal, Monty could grab wickets if played) and a distinct lack of confidence and knowledge of the wickets from our batsmen.

Put us in with green on the wicket, in overcast conditions and we are a very tidy unit. But we need to play more in the subcontinent to improve globally.

As for India? They look fine, they are so good on home turf, they always will be. They haven't raised any eyebrows with this win. If they travelled better they'd be challenging. I want to see Kohli perform though, such a talented player, not as good a batsman as cook though!

England need to take out a seamer, maybe Bresnan as he doesn't have the pace to threaten on lifeless wickets. Bring in Monty to add more bite to our attack. Keep faith in our batsmen, they can do it.

Also crossing fingers for 5 days should work.

where does the cook and kohli comparison come from? cook didnt become a world class player overnight. it took him 84 tests to reach where he is now, and still hasnt passed the ave. of 50. let kohli play a bit more test cricket then compare.