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Clean sweep seems improbable given its a 5 match series. Series win for Bangladesh is a genuine possibility now!

Australia losing two on the bounce to Bangladesh and Indian bowlers cleaning up the tail so quickly. What alternate reality are we living in here?

India vs England at Nottingham

Two modern day T20 exponents in the form of KL Rahul and Rohit are grinding it out in classical test match style. Lovely contrast to their white ball flamboyancy, both stylish and pleasing to the eye too as always. Incidentally, both are yet to cement their place as first choice openers, with Rahul in the fray for long. Lovely times in the coming days for test aficionados.

India building a strong base. 70/0 in 32

I started to watch cricket after your post just to see the old school grinding that you mentioned. Test cricket is at it’s best when the fight is equal between the bat and the ball. And just as I was settling down, to my astonishment Rohit Sharma had played almost 100 balls, he committed the harakiri that the T-20 generation is known for !! And now, despite making a wonderful start, Virat and Pujara are gone and suddenly the innings is looking like going England’s way !!

Impressed with KL Rahul and his application, I hope he gets the support he needs now from rest of the batsmen. Having done the hard work, it’s about staying at the wicket and score runs. And Jimmy Anderson- what a lovely bowler, more so under seaming conditions. Such a joy to watch a fast bowler in full steam :)

That is the problem these days. After doing all the hard work and building a solid opening partnership, one wrong shot by Rohit Sharma has opened the floodgates. English conditions are no joke and the Indian team despite acclimatising for so long, are committing the same blunders all over again and now Rishab Pant will do his usual stunts and if lucky, will go on to make a century too !!

Rohit Sharma gone, followed by Pujara and then Kohli goes for a golden duck. Rahane now follows getting run out (escaped one just a minute ago!).
Familiar Indian batting failure seems to be unfolding :Frustrati, 112/4 now

Edit: Rahul gets a life, dropped at second slip by Sibley off a beauty from Anderson!

Rohit played a potty shot to get out, after he had done so well to negotiate the new ball. Pujara, Kohli and Rahane played true to form.

Let's hope Rahul and Pant can pull off a partnership.

Ravi Ashwin should start throwing his wicket away from now on, whenever his name comes up in the team selection lottery. That way he will not have to compete for the all-rounder slot and can stake his claim for what he is, the best finger spinner in world cricket.

Pleasant and Surprisingly good batting from the Indian tail and we've got a good lead of 95 runs (more than half of what England scored in the first innings) clap:
a strong team effort considering that 3 premier batsmen in the team added only 9 runs. This match is now wonderfully poised.

Jadeja has started to become indispensable for Team India. I would have preferred him to not play those shots as he is a much better batsman than that. With Bhumrah trying to improve his batting, Jaddu could have tried to be around and play aggressively only when 9 down.

Jadeja is in the elite list of players clap:

Rahul fully capitalised on the 2 lives he got, both sitters dropped in the slips, helping himself to 84 runs and more importantly helping India get a healthy lead of 90+ runs.
Just need to focus on getting 10 English second innings wickets in quick time. Will not be easy given the frequent weather related interruptions in play. And if/when that is done, the herculean task of batting a 4th innings will still be there, fingers crossed. Quite evenly poised at the moment.

There was another gem of a cricket match between BD and Aus today.

BD with their slow left arm spin and medium pace are turning out to be a threat in their own den. Fizz bowled 15 dot balls of his 4 overs with just one run in the penultimate over. That's one of the greatest nought-fors I've seen (4-0-9-0)

BDs first bilateral series win over Australia.

Aus could not chase 127, not only did they lose the series they lost a lot of pride too. They were only 4 down and still could not chase it down, what a sad performance.

That's a pleasant surprise to see 2 current-gen cricketers make it it up there.

Interesting to note that Jacques Kallis, who is probably the best all rounder after Y2K, isn't in the top 5 of that list. The only reason I can think of is that all his contemporaries - Pollock, Donald, Ntini, Steyn, Morkel, Philander picked up the bulk of the wickets and didn't give Kallis too many opportunities. :p

200 wickets isn't equivalent to 2000 runs. It is more like 4000-5000 runs given the usual runs per wicket over the last 30yrs or so.

This cut off clearly favors bowlers who can bat a bit and Kallis clearly is the opposite.

Australia finally manage to pull one back to end the losing streak against Bangladesh. Set 105 for victory, Aussies make heavy weather of the low total losing 6 for 65, eventually emerging out victorious by 3 wickets in the 19th over.