I just don’t like news like “Stokes had a limited number of balls left in him so he’s saving them for the match, not the nets.”
Bloody hell, if your knee is in THAT bad of a state then give over. Just bat as a specialist and drop a batsman for Wood.
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Bangladesh 
vs. Afghanistan 
Green pitch, what a surprise 
Who was the City player who didn’t need to train, just swam and bossed it on the weekend? Best cricketer I’ve played with would turn up badly hungover with a knackered back and would bowl like a devil and hit 50.
Ben Stokes the Ledley King of this England set up.
At some point they’ll have to find him some rest. Can’t have him waltzing off to the upcoming World Cup. No need for him to be involved in the upcoming NZ and WI short format series either.
Can’t remember but I do recall Ledley King of the Spuds drastically curtailing any training and just playing matches on account of his painful knee
Maybe he was the guy. But my point is that a stupidly talented sportsman can perform at top level without practice / training. I’m sure a sportswoman could do the same just with more talking.
King could only play once a fortnight I remember my Spurs friend saying at the time or something like that.
In The Australian, Gideon Haigh writes about England’s Bazball approach - “new and exciting but meretricious and ultimately unsound” and there is a lovely Succession reference…
“When your top three are David Warner, Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne, it is tempting to regard Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope as Logan Roy did his offspring – “not serious people”.”
Good line but perhaps one for the England top-order to pin on the dressing room wall…?
What an utterly stupid thing to say, when two of those top 3, Davey and Usman, have absolutely zero history of scoring in England.
If there was an argument to be had about the differences between the two teams, the top order IMO would not be one of them. They both suck. Very hard.
399 in 74 overs 
Well, we lost the toss on a batting wicket against a team that will want to come out and smash it.
Silver lining is that Warner’s rattled stumps off Broad is staved off for a day at least. Also Starc not playing is good in terms of loose deliveries. The big positive with Starc is the extra batting depth. Boland and Hazlewood don’t add a lot with the bat.
Hazelwood is a criminally underrated bowler. Expect him to do well.
Crawley out by the third over (ball maybe?).
Nasser really has built up the English team this morning, making them sound invincible.
Let’s hope the team can live up to his lofty standards.
Where’s Grinn Mcgrawww when you need a bit of balance?
You know it’s a good pitch when we win and bat.
Let’s rock! 120-2 at lunch. Come on Aggers, no wickets and a hatful of runs.
No Stark? Intersting.
First ball 4. Bazzing!
Fucking hell. To talk about Bazball not facing the Aussie bowling lineup, then to play defensive in every ball bowled. Aussies in their own head here.
I realise its an absolute road - even an Aussie curator would be proud of this pitch - I’m fucking annoyed how Cummins is captaining so fucking reactively after only 3 overs.
The Crawley run a ball hundred is on…
Very early days. Many twists and turns await.
If this is an easy wicket now, how are England’s one bowler, two old geezers, two part time spinners and a crock going to bowl Australia out on it?