The future looks bright for England after an all round good performance here. They still have a lot to do in the remaining 4 tests but you couldn’t ask for more at this stage.
Away to India has to be the toughest gig in world cricket atm, just ask the Aussies!
Don’t worry about India, the Aussies are having a terrible time in Australia. They just lost by an innings and 80-run to South Africa in Hobart. That is a home series loss for Australia which is a pretty rare event…
And there was me hoping that we were getting a bit better at cricket.
Same old, same old.
It seems like they have lost the ability to build an innings. I blame it on all that 20/20 bollocks.
Where is Chris Tavare when you need him. Or even that Boycott bloke.
Like this. Oz being more creative and culturally relevant with its coinage than locally.
Richie Benaud - 50 cent coin.
Looks like the only chance on the upcoming Mohali pitch is to win the toss. 
Really enjoying this test match, great fight back by England but let them get away in the last hour. I thought we fell in to the old trap of going through the motions waiting for the new ball.
Was it that or that the ball was changed and they hadn’t as much confidence in it?
Could be, we seem to have mastered the art of fielding on our knees, a very difficult skill.
Good series this though, I think the teams are fairly evenly matched but home advantage gives India the edge. I do think that England are tantalisingly close to having a superb team and Rashid’s progress is really exciting. Would Batty have been in the side if Broard wasn’t injured? I really hope that Buttler can gain some real confidence, he is potentially awesome.
Ravi Ashwin is fantastic.
India look better with bat and ball to me.
Game over
India bossing it now
Moeen has now batted at 1 to 9, quite an achievement.
The way he played today he might have 10 and 11 ticked off by the end of the series.
It’s great to watch a series where five days are needed.
Do you think we will ever be a great team with Cookie as captain. Brilliant batsman but he lets the opposition off the hook at crucial times. We could have won the first test if he had gone for it on day four.
Yesterday we had negative fields against new batsmen coming in right down the order.
Time to hand over to Root at the end of this series.
Yes, probably the team won’t peak with Cook as captain. the very things that make him a superb opening bat (conservatism/denial) are the things that he needs less of as captain. His management of the spinners is a key pointer… He would rather grind the opposition down with seam and defensive fields than set attacking fields for the spinners and buy an opening. Probably he declared late in the first test because he didn’t trust Rashid to bowl them out, this happened last winter too, didn’t it?
Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan were great, incisive captains, Strauss less so. Maybe Root will redress the balance. I just hope that Cook will be happy to go back to being rank and file, it would be a shame if his career came to a premature end. He is a truly great batsman.
I read a piece from Atherton at the start of the series saying Cook had indicated he wants to step down as captain and carry on batting. Having Hameed to partner him will surely encourage him even more. He struggled today but several hours captaining the team in the field must be draining.
Up to tenth in the all time run scoring charts now.
Toss won, fingers crossed.
Decent day for England, though India still well in the game, and nice to see the debutant get a century.
Tomorrow mornings session will be critical - we need to get to 400 minimum and ideally 450+.
Just about made it.
Heard an interesting stat this morning, England have never lost a test on the sub-continent when they’ve scored 400 in their first innings. Let’s hope that particular tradition continues.