It was a busy morning at the office, and then I left at noon, and took the long way home, and then read on the patio, and so I missed the vast majority of the second session and nearly all of the third session. I didn’t watch on Willow and I did not check up on Twitter, all I did was pull up the (really phenomenal) Cricinfo app on my phone to see the score now and again.
And so it was not until much later in the day, when I scrolled through my Twitter feed, that I realized that something had happened with regard to a reversed Stuart Broad dismissal.
But I am not going to talk about that.
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This was England’s day. This is a team that can, when it wants to, quietly pummel their opponents into submission. And today England wanted to. Yes Cook and Pietersen fell before lunch, and yes the tail was exposed far earlier than anyone on the host’s side would have wanted, but it does not matter: this team – again, when it is firing on all cylinders – fucking BURIES opponents. They are relentless. But not in an aggressive way. They are confident and cool and quiet and they lull you to sleep until all of a sudden you wake up and you look at the scoreboard and their lead is insurmountable.
It really is something to see, this England, when they are in form.
Yesterday Australia was sailing along, tonight they are lost in a deep, dark pit.
Tomorrow’s first session will be key, if Australia can take a couple wickets and bowl England out before lunch when the host’s lead is only, say, 325, then maybe Australia has a shot. But I don’t see that happening. England will declare with a 400 run lead sometime before tea – and that will be just simply too much for Australia to chase down on this wicket against the likes of Anderson and Swann.
And so I say to my Australian fans: sorry, folks, but this one’s England’s.
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Limited Overs 