UKH

Oh dear ! Good job we have the Olympics as a distraction.

I just enjoy watching test cricket. If India play better so be it. 

It would be nice to have some competition, though.  Of course no shame to be losing to India but this was a bit of a capitulation. 

A bit? Four of our so-called batsmen accumulated the spectacular total of precisely zero runs between them!

And faced a mighty total of…30 balls.

Oh dear ! sums it up well

One word to sum up..... Dire!!!

I'd need a phrase and it would be some brilliant bowling from India. The England score wasn't too bad in my view in the context of a world class bowling attack exploting that much movement.

Superb innings from Root.  Still have India as favourites but at least its become a match now.

I'm guessing that wasn't a match to capture the imagination, Root's second innings aside.  England got off with one there.

The weather won in the end to spare English blushes.

India would be favourites but you can't tell at Trent Bridge on a wearing pitch under clouds, moisture and a breeze. At least people here might think twice next time if England underperform that it could be the pitch and conditions. I think the real difference was better bowling from India. The day 4 highlights were certainly really good fun and its good to see Joe smiling again.

Excellent again from captain Joe Root. He really carries this team. 5 tons this year alone  and now past 9000 runs. I always remember his first test and his technique had the commentators in raptures. He seemed to have so much time to play the ball and never looked troubled. And to think he could play for another 10 years!

Sad for Hameed out first ball, but he is in good company. Same happened to me once!

Only once ? 😆

It's a worry that it Only seems to be Root going big.  He could do with some support from his senior players - class established players like Bairstow and Buttler particularly. 

Anyway a much better match situation than I feared on day 1.

Excellent innings from Root 180 not out, where would England be without him...........

211? 😂

An excellent day of test cricket.

A great day in store tomorrow 

What on earth is going on at Lords? I'm completely perplexed at Root's tactics. 

I wonder if this will be the last occasion that a radio commentator uses the phrase “this team has four number elevens”.

oh dear

Well if they get Joe we may as well wrap up and go home!

Oh dear  they have!!!

Good grief... 

India were brilliant today but I think that is worst England performance I can remember - and I first started watching cricket when the West Indies crushed us in the 70's!

Oops

How has it come to this? I'm not a massive cricket fan, so I might be talking out of turn... But I'm pretty sure Ashley Giles was turned down as head coach,  but is now performance director, who sacked the head selector and put in a head coach with no domestic experience. Who then seems to rotate all the best players so they dont know whether they are coming or going and persist with the worst openers I've ever seen. I'm not sure even stokes would have made a difference to the outcome of the last 2 tests. It makes me pine for the 90s

Fuggin' Murdoch playing the long game, innit? 

That's probably a bit negative.  I'm sure that wasn't a uniquely abject performance. 

It's a ludicrous statement. The ball was always doing something and India bowled really well in the last innings on a genuine day 5 condition pitch and despite that England were 9 overs or a bit of bad light away from a draw. England lacked discipline with bat and ball at times and need to sort out their top order batting, need to cut out bowlers making kamikaze boundary dives to stop a single run and shouldn't allow themselves to get riled into poor practice; but entering the final day they could have won this, when after day one they looked like a draw best case.

It was a terrible last day performance, rather than the whole test, but even then, we’ve been bowled out in a single session a few times recently, so hard to say it’s the worst. 
England have been a real up and down team ever since we lost the Strauss / Cook / Trott top order. We’ve still not replaced any of them, but Burns is pretty much the best we’ve had since. We’ve also never replaced Swann, though I think we should have backed Leach a bit more. Lyon wasn't any better when he started, and he’s got 400 wickets now. 

I've not seen them lose so badly from such a position of relative strength  - lets put it that way.

I think we were watching a different test match. England were only favourites for a while on day 4  after they removed the top order cheaply. They were never in a 'position of strength' as you never count unhatched chickens in cricket The middle order partnership that thwarted England's chances was always possible as the two batsman had the clear ability to graft well.

Even if England did incredibly well bowling in the morning of day 5, approaching two hundred for a win in a final innings on a deteriorating pitch against a world class attack was going to require iron discipline from a batting line up mostly not known for that, plus a good bit of luck.  We only got within ten overs of a draw as India arguably declared too conservatively.

That test matches ebb and flow as they do is what makes the sport so compelling.

I think you miss some of the "it's traditional to lament the state of English cricket".  I'm sure it was a running theme in the Molesworth books I was reading 50 years ago.  Chiz.

I've watched England bat badly too many times before. This wasn't really such a situation. The wickets fell to good bowling rather than stupid gifts. I do think they lost confidence when the win possibility evaporated, which is the captain's fault,.as was the very strange bowling tactics on the last morning. A ground out draw would have been an OK result and should have been possible.

I think its because I'm delighted to see such a good game of cricket and don't mind that the best team wins even if I did hope that might be England (unlike Rugby Union and Football when I get so depressed by hype, and team management that I sometimes drift beyond neutrality and actually enjoy it at times when England lose). The lamentation you speak of is for imperialists, fools, or satirists.

We seem to have forgotten the lessons that led to the serious gains we made between 2009 and 2013 that are delightfully illustrated here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lhvt

That’s better (so far) 

At least there's no chance of a follow-on today. 

No, great day's play from England. 

Cracking stuff sure enough. A delight all round. I'm hoping Hameed goes on to make a big one. 

Sadly not, but Malan and Root are making excellent progress. 

Well that is settled then. Root is an odds-on certainty for the SPotY Award. No average Joe!

To go back to this one I disagree. Thye There were in a potentially commanding position, lost the plot psychologically which set the scene for the subsequent collapse.

But anyway - should they lose form here that WILL be their worst result! 

Very hard in Olympic year and euros and no free for viewTV coverage .  He'll be up against that horse dancing woman for a start.  And that other BBC darling Tom Daley. And Cav.

Why would Charlotte Dujardin (the horse dancing woman) be up for SPOTY, she didn’t even win any gold medals this time.

My guess would be Peaty and a pair of Kennys from the Olympics, although maybe Tom Daley as well. Sarah Storey from the Paralympics assuming she becomes the most medaled British Paralympian at these games.

Cav is a good call and I don’t think any footballers will get individual nominations I’m sure they will be nominated in the team and coaching category.

Blimey. Turned on this morning expecting a tight game only to see India's last two go down !

I blinked and missed it.

It’s nice to see that England aren’t the only nation capable of a catastrophic collapse. 😂
Root must be glad to finally get some support from the top order batsmen. What a difference that makes! He is in superb form at the moment; long may it continue.
I thought our bowling attack were magnificent though and hope they can back it up at The Oval and Old Trafford. Robinson has been a great find.
The series is nicely poised now and Kohli spoke well in the post match interview. I’m sure India will bounce back after getting stuffed in this test. 
Let’s hope the decent weather holds and play is not affected by rain. 

I was there and every time I went for beer or a wee wickets fell. Ate our sandwiches at home! On the plus side we were there on Wednesday for the best day of Test cricket I've ever been at.

I think I'm getting a bit old for the Western Terrace experience. Was a bit much on Wednesday - I wanted to watch the cricket, not hear people shout " shut up you paedo" at each other.

Kohli always speaks well and comes over as a really class person in my experience.   Let's hope for England's sake he doesn't rediscover his batting A game for a couple more tests !

"Root must be glad to finally get some support from the top order batsmen. What a difference that makes! He is in superb form at the moment; long may it continue."

If it does continue he will break the record for test runs scored in a year... just the small matter of the Australians.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/30/joe-roots-special-summer-engl...

Decent start today, India 6 down at tea, with the wickets being spread around among the quicks. Only slight blemish was the dropped catch off Kohli - here's hoping it doesn't count for much. 

Well it was going swimmingly until this Thakur started smashing the ball all over the place.

He's a decent counteraThakur.

Early wickets for India making things look in the balance end of day 1

I notice that the BBC are using that awful term 'batter' instead of batsman, which is what it was for years. Another sign of woke language creeping into this hallowed game. I think it was the Aussies who first used this word, or was it the great West Indian commentator Tony Cozier. I bet you won't find it in Wisden!

.

I bet you do. I've just read a Wisden article about Haseeb Hameed, who is described as a batter.

It may be a reflection of the fact that women's cricket now has a significantly higher profile than even a couple of years ago, and 'batter' is an appropriately non-gendered term which can be used in both the men's and women's game. And of course, we're all quite happy with the non-gendered 'bowler'. 

All out except Anderson, a specialist at 11, who has 99 not outs!

usual utter garbage today, is this truly the best batting line up we have?? Pathetic

5-0 Ashes worth a punt..

Bowlers useless unless ball moving around, batsmen just useless unless they are called Joe...

Beaten by a better team. 
Like you say, we’ve only got one established batsman (plus Ben) and we’re going to struggle until we have one or two more. It also screws up the slip cordon. The bowling has been hampered by lots of injuries and a long-standing reluctance to pick a spinner who can’t bat.  
I actually think the top 5 should all go to Oz as first choice right now, but 4 of them have to prove themselves. 

Although it's not a great top 5 I can't think of a better one with much experience of test cricket. Considering Chris Silverwood was all about winning the ashes when rotating players last winter, his options now look rather limited 

To be fair, I think winning the world T20 would be a big deal, and we’ve probably got more chance of that

Well that was probably the only way we were ever going to salvage a drawn series!

Then if it can somehow be arranged to spread covid amongst the Aussie team....they would have to award the Ashes to England by default!

There are mutterings that it could possibly have gone ahead however cricket India and possibly players are protecting themselves to ensure the more lucrative IPL can go ahead as it starts soon.