and then when Root gets out he goes from praising England's batting to declaring instant doom.
The thing for England is that it is actually 98-4. Another batsmen gets out now and it will be interesting evening session."
That Stokes chap doesn't lack confidence!
I think what he actually said was
hardly instant doom
England 523 for 6 – lead by 295 runs
TBH not the outcome that seemed to be on the cards when Bell was out to the third ball yesterday morning – But Cook did what Cook does best and accumulated yet another big Century – Root whilst not as fluent or as comfortable as usual injected pace into the inning before being out for 84 – Then Stokes – a relatively quiet start against the old ball – a devastating attack on the new ball – characterised by a couple of overs bumper/hooking competition with Southee - 100 in 85 balls
Trouble it is not a dead cert winning positon – Today I would have sympathy with the conservative approach – having got out of a very big hole to lose would be unforgivable – it is not many months ago we saw New Zealand making 300 in 40 odd overs against a good Saffer team – Englands bowling is not really up to taking 10 wickets in a day and with the overall run rate in this test at nearly 4/over an aggressive approach might be deemed to be suicide – It would make for a very interesting final day tho
Agreed. I fear England may ultimately regret the aggressive approach taken on Sunday. I doubt very much they can force a win by scoring a fast 125 and inserting NZ. The balance between NZ batting and England bowling suggests they will easily bat out two sessions.
The obvious danger is we're all out with a lead of 350 with maybe 75 overs to play. NZ would definitely fancy that. Although I love aggressive cricket I think we should have batted much more conservatively on Sunday to make sure we got to lunch on Monday
Consensus on TMS and other media seems to be that England should go for it and if it all goes tits up they will be forgiven (assuming that they don't make a complete hash of it)