England v India – live! | Rob Smyth and Rob Bagchi

• Email rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts • Press refresh or hit the auto-update for the latest • Follow Rob Smyth on Twitter , if that’s your thing 16th over: England 48-1 (trailed by 67 on first innings; Strauss 16, Bell 23) Another delightful boundary from Bell, this one pushed straight back down the ground off the bowling of Sreesanth. The ball is swinging a little, but the pitch isn’t doing too much at the moment. We’re not going to have a Test like this , are we? “Wasn’t too long ago that the OBO was filled with please for rain, rain and more rain,” says Aram Gumusyan. “Now there’s heady talk of symbolic maces? Watch out for when The Man comes round, and his name is Hugh G. Bris.” Nah, I’m not having that. None of us are saying that it will happen or that it deserves to happen, but it’s close enough to make discussion of it entirely legitimate. It’s not like we’re rushing to the machine in the toilet just because a girl said hello to us. 15th over: England 42-1 (trailed by 67 on first innings; Strauss 15, Bell 18) Strauss drives Kumar pleasantly thorugh mid off for four. If I wasn’t terrified of being savaged by twos of readers for tempting fate, I’d say England have started the day very promisingly. ” Scyld Berry?” says Ali Kinnaird. “A name with no vowels? This is a first for me! Are there any other names with no vowels in them? Thank you.” I can’t think of any surnames without a vowel in them. 14th over: England 38-1 (trailed by 67 on first innings; Strauss 11, Bell 18) Bell lashes Sreesanth through the covers for four, prompting a cry of ‘Shot!’ from Strauss at the other end. He didn’t quite do the full ‘Ian Ronald Bell’, like Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks, but it was still a nice moment. “Here on Star Cricket, Sunny and Ravi Shastri had a right go at Vaughan, Sunny wanted VVS to take Michael to court,” says Vivek Radhakrishnan. “Entertaining rants by both of them. Where do stand on this issue, Rob?” I am saying absolutely nothing on this subject. Hell does hath fury like a woman scorned, and I suspect we’ll witness it at some stage before the end of August. 13th over: England 31-1 (trailed by 67 on first innings; Strauss 9, Bell 13) Some early swing from Praveen Kumar. Mind you, he could swing the ball in an airless bunker. Strauss tucks him through midwicket for three, and then Bell deliberately fiddles one to third man for four. England trail by 36, and will probably want at least another 285 runs in this innings. “What a glorious series this has been, like waking up after a huge bender on the first night of a holiday and realising you have no hangover, the sky is blue and you still have 5 nights to play with,” says Guy Hornsby. “It’s hard to recall it’s only 7 days old. With Trott seemingly out, today is all about our Eoin. I desperately hope he gets a big score. Having an on-song Morgan in your Test side for the next six or seven years. Imagine that!” He should come out swinging today. Forget the technical concerns and the poor form and do what he does best: just hit the ball. 12th over: England 24-1 (trailed by 67 on first innings; Strauss 6, Bell 9) Sreesanth bowls the first over of the day, trying to draw Bell into a drive outside off stump. He declines, so it’s a maiden. “First! (Sorry)” says Ryan Dunne. “Do teams still get the giant mace if they become No1 team in the world? Would it be put on display on Lord’s or the like, or would Swann be allowed to play about with it for cool Twitter photos? I remember when Duncan Fletcher said (well, he would) that his achievements with England in the 00s far dwarfed anything the country managed in the 80s; could a case be made that England deserve serious plaudits (including more gongs from the Queen) if they reach No1, or has Test cricket overall declined too much from the heady days of 2005?” I think it’ll be a huge achievement if England manage it. Fletcher was right; England were often hopeless in the 1980s. Scyld Berry wrote a fine piece on that subject in the very first edition of The Wisden Cricketer. And yeah, they do get the mace. “Good morning,” says John Starbuck. “It’s been announced that Trott will bat though no-one knows what position yet.” Crikey, that is a surprise. No10 or 11? Thought for the day This series is going to kick off very soon, isn’t it? Trottwatch He faced only two balls in practice this morning before going off for an injection. It seems very unlikely he will bat. Preamble Morning. These days everyone wants to be FIRST! We’re a culture obsessed with the first: first impression, first match of the season, first meal (Paulie Walnuts says breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and wise men don’t argue with Paulie), first date, first injunction, first pint after eight hours kissing the feet of The Man. In some contexts, however, the second is far more important. For example, a monstrous slab of lunchtime meat at The Hawksmoor trumps Frosties anyday, although you can tell Paulie that. Similarly, the second set of a tennis match is surely the most significant, when the contest is almost completed at 2-0 or comes alive at 1-1. That’s the scenario we have at Trent Bridge today, where an excellent Test match will probably be decided, if not actually completed. Either England go 2-0 up or India level it at 1-1 with power, Sehwag and Zaheer to add. The English cricket lover in me is desperate for England to win; the Test cricket lover in me is equally desperate for India to win. Think about how empty 2005 would have been had Australia gone 2-0 up at Edgbaston, and not just because England were losing. Six years ago we had the best of both worlds – an epic series and an England win. So this time we want India to win here, England to win by one wicket at Edgbaston and then by one run at The Oval, thus clinching the series 3-1 and going top of the Test Championship. Is that so much to ask? All that said, I suppose we could live with England winning by 114 runs here after a staggering 121-ball 132 from Eoin Morgan. India in England 2011 England cricket team India cricket team Cricket Over by over reports Rob Smyth Rob Bagchi guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 31, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.