I’m not sure what bothers me the most about what happened at Edgbaston today. Our groundsman producing a turing pitch when our best spinner is out injured, losing 7 wickets for 11 runs, or Ashley Giles’ reaction to collapsing in that manner.
In defence of the batting collapse Giles said “I can’t fault the fight our batsmen showed. The odds were against them. They were up against two top-class left-arm spinners on a pitch that was perfect for them.”
Fight! 7 for 11, is that showing fight?
Two top class left-arm spinners! Well I suppose I shouldn’t be too harsh in my criticism as a county side is always going to struggle against Warne and Murali, I don’t know how Lancs afforded them both though, as I thought they were skint?
Also, how did they manage to play two overseas players?
Anyway, no matter how bad the pitch, that is some collapse and I hope and expect that Ashley Giles is saying something totally different to his batsmen behind closed doors.
Not the ideal return for Ian Bell (33 & 3) and Jonathan Trott (9 & 39) either, playing on wickets like this one won’t help them get into form for the upcoming test. At least Chris Woakes’ good form continued as he picked up another 6 wickets with a decent economy rate.
In the Warwickshire 1st innings on Thursday, James Anderson returned figures of 3/57 from 23 overs on a day that suited the seamers, from an England prospective that is a decent run out and return.
I spent most of the day in the Edgbaston area on Thursday and it was cloudy with a thick heavy atmosphere which are pretty much the perfect conditions for Jimmy’s bowling. How does he get that cloud to follow him around England?