I would declare now. No way are India getting near 400.

comment by HaaK (U11574)
posted 1 minute ago
No real need to bat beyond tea, but this England setup is very cautious so I expect we'll push for the 450 lead.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems to be the way, India obviously batted for much longer than needed in the 3rd test. It seems all teams prefer to have a huge amount of runs to give the chasing team absolutely no chance rather than dangling a carrot.

If this pitch was a road then they may have batted with more aggression earlier but England will most likely take 10 wicket taking deliveries during India's innings, whether England gobble up all their catches is another matter though.

28 overs left in this final session although you can take away 2 when the innings swap over. Jadeja really does whizz through his overs doesn't he?

The general consensus is bowl 110 overs at India so you can get 30 overs with the new ball if you need them. That would mean batting for 6 more overs which seems a bit pointless. May as well put them in now.

Yeah. In simple terms:

India are extremely unlikely to hit a 4th-innings 400 in 4 sessions.

4 sessions will definitely be enough to bowl them out. 3 sessions might not be.

So why bother batting any further?

I guess what it comes down to is whether England think it's more important to get some runs under out batsmen's belts, and get some group confidence from finally scoring a big 400+ total... or actually winning the match which is meaningless in the overall series context.

Ordinarily I'd say obviously go for the win, but I can see the value in giving our much-criticised batting lineup the opportunity to score a big, confidence-building total. Although the quick loss of Bairstow and Buttler has kinda undermined that.

You'd like to think we'll declare after the next wicket, but equally I could see them saying "oh well, only 3 left, might as well have a bash," and then us still batting with only half an hour left to play today

From a personal perspective I'd love to see Ben Stokes get a decent score, but it's too late in the day now for him to get anywhere near a ton even if he gets his eye in early. All angles considered, I think we should've declared at tea.

strange, was perfectly set up to just declare at lunch

tea* lol

comment by HaaK (U11574)
posted 1 minute ago
From a personal perspective I'd love to see Ben Stokes get a decent score, but it's too late in the day now for him to get anywhere near a ton even if he gets his eye in early. All angles considered, I think we should've declared at tea.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
We'll hopefully see some few fireworks from him. For the majority of this series, he's been very circumspect and organised but not really been given much of an opportunity to give the ball a good tonking.

Well he's just tonked the ball into Vihari's head

So I hear

Just can't control his urge to commit GBH

Stokes S/R up over 100 now. Probably declare after he gets his 50.

...or not

They're going for the 450 lead, must be.

400!

comment by HaaK (U11574)
posted 1 minute ago
They're going for the 450 lead, must be.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You'd think so, hopefully this will be the final over of our innings.

Maybe they're just going until Rashid is out. Or they're not going to bother declaring. Who fecking knows

Jadeja match figures currently 7/258

There we go, 423/8d

comment by HaaK (U11574)
posted 3 minutes ago
Maybe they're just going until Rashid is out. Or they're not going to bother declaring. Who fecking knows
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jadeja, 3/179 in this innings. Vihari ends with 3/37. Cracking new spinner India have on their hands here.

Jadeja did bowl 47 overs though, his economy was actually slightly better than Vihari's (3.81 vs 3.89)

He bowled those 47 overs in the space of about an hour and a half as well

jimmy

Dhawan was considering reviewing that. seriously it was hitting half way up middle

Dhawan.......

Yeah you guessed it-

GONE.