England V India Test Match Series 2021

^^ England are ranked 9th out of the 10 regular Test Match sides in catching, with only Bangladesh below them.(think that is just slip catches ?) An average of 76% means that 1 in 4 are dropped, there's no allowance for the difficulty of catches. Burns drops a third of his slip catches. The constant changes in personnel doesn't help. Burns fields at slip for Surrey & in 9 Championship matches this year, he's taken just 5 catches, no record as to how many drops. Compare this to Yorkshire, who have fielded a settled slip-cordon, with Kohler-Cadmore - 18 catches in 9 matches ranked 2nd, Lyth 18 catches in 11 matches, ranked 3rd, & Brook 14 catches in 11 matches, ranked 10th. I doubt there is any better at County level. Playing at Headingley helps, are a lot of edges are created, but the slope makes catching behind the wicket difficult.

4th Test Day 3 Close
India 191 & 270-3
England 290 Rohit 127 Pujara 61 Rahul 48 Robinson 2-67
India lead England by 171 runs

England will hope to have a better day tomorrow or the game will be gone. 250-300 may be too many to chase, but i fear it may be more than that.

Again it looks like the all important morning session, & in particular, the first hour, that England must have the better of, by making an early breakthrough with a relatively new ball. Kohli looks really hungry for a big score, he will be the key wicket. Jadeja has been put under extra pressure by moving him up the order, which is a strange move designed to take pressure off Rahane perhaps. If Rahane is out of form at 5, then he'll still be out of form at 6, they should've either stuck with him, dropped him. If India bat for 2 sessions, their lead could be anwhere from 350-400. This would require England to not only chase a big total but at a high run-rate, which I'm not sure our line-up is equipted to do.

Kohli looking for a big score and India for a win. Danger if it's 350+chase is a major collapse,so it's either chase and possibly lose or crawl save the game and go for next one. Personally if less than 300 go for it more go for draw.

4th Test Oval lunch Day 4
India 191 & 329-6
England 290
India lead by 230 runs

England have achieve 2 things this morning, 3 wickets was a minimum requirement, but the runs have also been stemmed, which has just about kept them in the game. With 2 very dangerous players at the crease for India, I still believe they're slight favourites.

England chase 368,let's see how it goes 3 and a bit sessions left.

England 77-0 at close 291 still needed for a win, 10 wickets for indian win.Rain for a draw.

Think it will be a case of England trying to get to lunch with minimal loss and if they succeed in that cause maybe a window of opportunity might present itself.

Hameed had a rush of blood and smashed a ball from Jadeja to mid on. Siraj at mid on fails to judge the pace and is slightly late to react. Gets his hands to it, but the ball has burst through and hit Siraj in the groin area. Ouch!!!

I thought England were bad in the field but this was embarassing. He'd probably get a bollocking when he goes off the field, but he's just had it.