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It looks like a glorious day at Lords for the first day of the Test Cricket match & after 66 overs England have 214 runs and have lost 7 wickets in their first innings.Woakes & Bairstow got the score to 200 runs in a reasonably good partnership, but the canny Australian bowlers have taken Woakes' wicket. Woakes' with 41 runs is England's 2nd best first inninings score, only the opener chappy with 50something scored more. ..so.three or four.top order batsmen have failed to perform.
At 220 for 7 my opinion is, if Australia can wrap.this up & take last 3 wickets & limit score to 250 then they've won day one. If England can get the total to 270 -280 it's a draw for day one honours, & if England can get the total first inninings score to 290-300 then that's a very good recovery and "damage limitation" from 6 for 160 odd

England's​ first innings finished, 258 runs. A good start by the Australian cricketers

My mistake, it's day two, the first day was a bad weather ??? lost day. So with only four days of play, time is valuable, so Australia have done well to have taken ten wickets in.less than one day ..

Tomorrow has rain forecast all day. Saturday isn't looking great either. This has a draw written all over it, which is lucky as Australia usually give us a kicking at Lord's :)

Top scorers ..Rory Burns (opening batsman) made 53, Bairstow 52 & Woakes 32 in England's first innings

Weather's looking okish today. Possible showers mid afternoon, but could get a full day in.

Australia need 29 to avoid the follow on, so no real danger of that. Not an easy day to bat, though, so could see England get Australia out and have a lead. Tomorrow looks a better day to bat, so hard to see Australia losing on the final day. Still smells very much like a draw unless a team has a moment of madness.

Australia all out for 250 runs at ten past four & tea on day four, so England have an eight run lead. Five wickets fell in the middle two hour.session for 95 runs.. now if Australia can take five wickets in the next session & England score one hundred.. then repeat that in the first session of day five.. setting up a two session run chase of about 210 to win.. ??? Or the opportunity for Joffra Archer demolish Australia and help give England victory ?

2nd Test match, day five Stokes has just hit a nice four to go to 91 runs & England 215 for five wickets & lead of 223 runs & commentators are starting to speculate about a Declaration by England.

Australia are shutting down the game nicely, so half expecting a handshake soon.

Hope Smithy is fighting fit for the next test. No sport in shooting a lame duck.

It's close enough for them to go down to the line.

Just seen that "catch" which dismissed Labuschagne … don't think I agree with the umps.

Headingly & 3rd Test match. Australia without Steve Smith batting on day one.. plodding along at 5 for 146 Warner got 60 odd, Labuschagne on 51, but at least four failures in the top order including two ducks.

It's a hard day to bat. Warner and Lasagne have done very well. Always feels wrong to bowl first but a good call in this case (not that I was thinking that a few hours ago!)' Weather for the rest of the weekend is looking quite pleasant.

Despite the (very) frustrating interruptions it was a good day's cricket, with the balance swapping from side to side.

In one of the breaks TMS played an interesting documentary about the '81 Headingly test, the final day of which is one of my clearest Ashes' memories.

...ugh...


So, who's looking forward to the rugby?

The English bowlers performed admirably. Australia made 179 runs in their first innings. I thought that England could get into a match winning position with a good batting effort. However Australia's bowlers have put in an even more impressive effort and dismissed England for only 67 runs and Australia have a lead of 112 runs. Now Australia have the opportunity with a good batting performance to create the circumstances to achieve a second Test match win and move closer to a series win.

F#@$!

There is nothing better in this world than giving the poms a sniff - then snuffing it out.

Chasing 350 odd runs to win England did well to get to 3 for 156 runs on day three? Most importantly, they batted out most of the day, 70 odd overs and only lost three wickets. Can the English batsmen survive another day & a "new ball" ? Australia are in a match winning position, but have to take wickets to secure the win.

It's not impossible for England to win, they need about 200 runs more to win, they have 7 wickets in hand & plenty of time.

Could be an interesting finish.

The way that the balance can swing between sides is the thing that makes Test cricket so good.