This is true. Today alone Australia had Naisarani, kerrvi and koroibete. New Zealand had Reece all eligible to play for Fiji. Plus we have cokanasiga

Some peculiar decisions from the ECB vis a vis central contracts. Firstly Plunkett lost his central contract for white ball. Odd decision. Very good in the middle overs and kept us in that World Cup long before Stokes and Archer to a lesser extent took all the headlines. Then more bizarrely Denly gets a white ball contract. Him and Morgan are the same age so hardly one for the future. Currently Roy, bairstow, Root, Morgan, Stokes, buttler as the batsmen. Where do they see him fitting it. I’d be surprised if he plays white ball at all unless we have a tin pot match when others are rested and even then I’d prefer to see whether the next generation can hack it.

Important win that. With Luton at home coming up this is the first chance we have of threatening the play offs pretty much since we came down.

Bugger.

I reckon there’ll be some good deals to be had out of Thomas cooks impending demise. Holidays will be going at rock bottom prices. So if not particularly fussed whether go away the best case scenario is have a cheap holiday or a holiday couldn’t otherwise afford and on the worst case scenario is it’s cancelled or get stranded for a few days but you’re financially covered under the ATOL scheme. Unfortunately I have shares in them think bought them at 29p now at 3p. ?. Seems that after fosun bought them rbs said needed another £200,000,000 pronto which has goosed them.

Quite true. But I’d wager none are picking Evans.

I must admit I have no idea who’s going to play in what formation these days. It’s a bit like throwing a jigsaw in the air and hoping the pieces click together. Bennett and 10 others is the only certainty.

If that tevita cavubati says it’s Tuesday it’s Tuesday.

Yeah they’re absolute beasts.

Watching France vs Argentina I'd like to think there's no too much to worry about for England with either of them. Both very sloppy, especially at the breakdown. Think they'll struggle with our big runners.

Not sure it's necessary for the pundits to have removed their shoes in the studio. Probably not even in Japan. They’ll be in Salford somewhere.

At least we’ve salvaged something from this series. Winter 2021 is the away ashes, summer 2022 is New Zealand and South Africa. So the very earliest the next home ashes will be is 2023 and 22 years since last beat us here.

A very decent season to be fair but Burns was getting big first class runs. In my opinion for what it’s worth I’d be wary about putting stokes at 3. He’d basically be coming in as an opener and I think he’s better once the ball is a bit older. For me a bairstow is hanging on by a thread. I’d personally go for foakes over him as keeper batsman. Don’t know what he did wrong he had a good tour of Sri Lanka and seemed to be made the fall guy for the West Indies debacle. Think can afford to play buttler or bairstow just not both as both very hit and miss. Mainly miss unfortunately

Yeah the oval. Ha. Never seen either of those play. As far as I’m aware both open but haven’t got great averages. On the one hand that’s worrying with the county championship being so weak but on the other hand they’re doing the bulk of red ball cricket it the spring and autumn so not exactly great to bring on the top order through. Another one always mentioned is Ollie pope who has a first class average of 60. But he’s another number 5/6 and there is obviously a massive step up. Lancs, like England, have a weak top order. That’s always a concern. Jennings, Davis, Bohannon and livi have been plenty for div 2 but can they regularly step up in div 1. Onions will probably go but they’ve brought in Luke wood from notts. I think getting Glenn Maxwell back would be decent work.

Apparently there was a bit of agro between stokes and Warner with stokes calling him a fucking prick after classically childish Australian sledges about Bristol. Wade and Paine are chirpy buggers as well. Particularly Wade never shuts up. Given neither make any runs, you’d think they’d be quiet.

Mitch Marsh on the bowling honours board at Lords. How embarrassing. Those brothers are dog shit and get dropped all the time, other than against England. One of them, think him, got a double hundred or a “daddy” hundred last time we played down there. He can’t buy a run generally.

This is probably the first time England have been ahead in a game until the last few overs at Lords where got on top without ever having a realistic chance of winning and the miracle at headingley. If England win this game then the next time there’s an ashes series on these shores they won’t have won a series over here for over 20 years. That’s definitely worth fighting for.

Lancashire promoted. Far too good for division 2.

Just watched the wickets. Denly, Burns, stokes, bairstow and Curran terrible just terrible. Root got a decent ball but I believe he was dropped 4 times off rank shots.

Bit of cramp coming on surely. ?

That’s it lad. Get the physio on.

22 overs left. Could drag that down to 15 with a bit of faffing about. New gloves here and there. An invisible man behind the bowlers arm.

He is a number 11 if ever there was one. If jimmy was fit he’d still be a number 11. Not sure how Buttler could leave that one. He could have only left it on length but why would you do that on a day 5 pitch. Not a good look.

Wish buttler had used that wooden thing he was holding.

Well we’ve made tea. More than I thought we’d do. All can ask is they put a price on their wickets and make it difficult and for the most part doing that. Not a lot left though. Archer and broad don’t look to have an over in them so could come down to leach