England ended the day 46 for 4, which was quite an achievement considering they were 24 for 4.

England trail West Indies by 77 runs with 6 wickets remaining

Stoneman out for 1, Westley for 8, Malan at least hung around last night & is with Stokes at the crease, both on 13.
As far as numbers 2 & 3 are concerned though, see my comments before a ball was bowled..

It is late in the Summer (ha,ha) to play a game of cricket in the UK though. The conditions were all bowler friendly & Stokes, especially, thrived with 6 for 22. However all the bowlers, from both sides, were very hard to score runs off..

England need another tailend batting display to get a decent lead on what looks like a very low scoring pitch if conditions stay as they are.

If England can be reduced to 24-4 by the West Indies (albeit in bowler friendly conditions) what on earth is going to happen when they come up against Starc,Hazlewood and Cummins this winter !
If we only have 3 out of our top 6 batsmen as Test standard then we are going to rely a lot on Bairstow,Moeen and Woakes to try to get us out of a dire situation time after time.
Incidentally,one person who will have profited from this collapse is Hameed who made 88 for Lancashire yesterday and looks almost certain to be in the Tour party for Australia now.

Congrats to the Aussies in drawing the series 1-1 against Bangladesh.Yesterdays win should give them a bit of confidence for this winter......take Warner and Smith out of their batting line up and they are as badly off as England.

Good assessment around Zidane. Watched the Poms skittle the Windies and then watched that dull grey English summer skyline go on forever. A night test without the pink ball. It just looked like it would rain all day. England will prevail.
Aussie and Bangladesh should have been at least 3 tests.


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Thanks to Stokes (60) & Broad (38) England did marginally better than the West Indies - 194 all out.
Anderson managed to get number 500 (& then 501) as the West Indies closed the day on 93 for 3 - losing Powell (45) might be a blow to them gaining a large lead, although Shai Hope is still there for 35.

West Indies lead England by 22 runs with 7 wickets remaining

Congrats to Jimmy Anderson on getting his 500th Test wicket.
Englands last 2 wickets added 60 runs which might yet be crucial in the context of this match.
Maybe Broad,Anderson and Roland-Jones should bat at 2,3 and 5 and England could then pick another 3 fast bowlers at the bottom of the order.....along with Stokes,the team would then comprise of 7 "quickies"......Root wouldn't have to worry about his bowlers getting tired !

Lunch

WI 153-6
West Indies lead England by 82 runs with 4 wickets remaining

It could have been better still for England but while the bowling has been good the fielding has been less than..
Shai Hope the main man for the Windies - 60 not out..

177 all out
England trail West Indies by 106 runs with 10 wickets remaining

Anderson the destroyer as he gets his name on the board again with a 7 for 42...

ENGLAND WIN BY NINE WICKETS

Cook the man out for 17. New boys Stoneman (40) & Westley (44) see England home. The WI bowlers knew the game was up (miracles excepted) before they started though, so hardly Ashes recommendations.

Anderson has been the England bowler of the summer with 39 wickets at something like an average of 14... Have to go way back to the 50's to find a better return..
The batting however - sorry won't bore you any more on that score..

3rd. of the 1 day Internationals yesterday - from Bristol.
The Gloucester County cricket ground is in the middle of a housing estate, small & just about my least favourite county ground..
England easily won the first ODI & the second was a complete weather wash out.
With some sort of truce made between the 'play abroad' players & the West Indian cricket authorities it was generally accepted that the visitors would provide a much tougher trial in this form of the game than they generally did in the Test matches.

England were put into bat & stuttered to 74 for 3 until Stokes & Root steadied the ship. It was starting to look like a good score in view when England contrived to lose another 3 wickets for 11 runs that saw them at 217 for 6.
That bought Moeen & Woakes to the wicket & they, again, steadied the ship. Moeen moved along nicely at a run a ball to 39 before he suddenly cut loose with a savage display of batting. His move from 50 to 100 took only 12 deliveries. Admittedly the West Indies should have dismissed him earlier than they eventually did but it was a fine knock for 102.
Innings closed at a massive 369 for 9.

However the West Indies open with one of the biggest hitters in the game - Chris Gayle. While he remained at the crease there was always hope. He stayed there until he was run out for 94 & the hope vanished.
West Indies all out for 245 & can now only draw the series.

Meanwhile, in India, the hosts moved to a 1 day series win over Australia with 2 games to spare.
Australia put on a good enough show to set a target of 294 with Finch (124) & Smith (63) being the stand out scorers.
Batting in India is India's forte though & they ran that off with a couple of overs to spare for the loss of 5 wickets.

The win was enough to put India back to the top of the 1 day rankings, over South Africa.