I think 175 will be about right Oliver.

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Nothing says "Obey Me" like a bloody head on a fence post!

I seriously doubt it. He's got no chance of being selected for the Twenty20 stuff surely? I think he just gets out without going on to three figures. Nothing to do with the money available.

Don't see what KP could have done. We just need umpires to get their decisions right more often. This series has been full of very poor decisions.

Perhaps the umpires are just trying to kill Test cricket with their poor judgement, before Twenty20 does the job for them.

It must be so irritating not being allowed to officiate in "major" international matches in one's own country.

If Twenty20 was the sole international game that wouldn't be a problem.

But I don't know why any of us are panicking (which we surely are) we've still got the great Paul Collingwood to come. And he's a gritty northerner... so he won't struggle to make runs.

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

Well, that's the point I was making - he might have had some bad luck; so might his skipper. But we are not losing all these wickets because of luck, or, if we are, you won't find me using that as an excuse. I'm still disappointed.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

I don't think for a moment that Cook will play in the Stanford matches, and he presumably doesn't think that either - though perhaps "I've scored fifty I can start playing some of my Twenty20 shots now!!!"

A horrid thought that might well flicker through an obdurate batsman's mind from time to time as he sees the promise of easy money disappearing from his grasp.

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

The toss won't make the slighest bit of difference if you play badly.

Must have been a real feather; not a squeak on hot spot and Boucher and smith didn't appeal until they saw Nel!! (I know the SA captain reserves his most veciferous appeals for when the ball has bounced).

KP triggered given caught off his pad and before we have the "he was LBW anyway" schtick the replay shows he was struck outside the line. England must be regretting their decision to not go for the referall system as I understand SA were happy to give it a go.

Bell has the chance to show he has the bottle to perform under the pump and Collingwood has the chance to prove te selectors right.

On anther note I see the exhausted and spent Broad is so fatigued he is bowling for Notts!!!

Ahh well you see the mistake Stuart Broad made (and he can blame his dad for this one) was that he was born in Nottingham, so he's not a gritty northerner (like Collingwood) he's not quite soft as s***e though obviously because he's not a southerner either.

But - for goodness sake - a midlander... I mean how ARE you going to keep your place in an England side when you're up against a gritty northerner?

No chance. Besides Collingwood's captain of the one day side. So he must be class.

I think I should put "not impressed" on everything I write. It does rather seem to be the order of the day.

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Red-it, Red-it, Read it and wept

Perhaps we now know why they want to play the extra batsman!

This is exactly the problem when you open up a hole by removing one of the openers, in this instance somewhat self inflicted by Strauss himself. Vaughan goes quickly and this exposed Pietersen to the newish ball. He just plays like a lunatic at times.

So it's down to Bell and Cook to stabilise the ship and thankfully Bell knows how to play the newish ball. I sincerely hope that both those batsmen consider the implications of either of them getting out cheaply now - it exposes poor Collingwood to another pressure situation and then Flintoff followed by Ambrose!

Crucial time I think for all these batsmen as a loss here will put many places under threat.

Yes, England are getting 'some' dubious decisions, but they happen. We know they happen, there's NOTHING anyone can do about them, apart from the next batsman taking on the responsbility of putting that 'dubious' decision right by scoring lots of runs and make it unimportant.

This is the test of a mentally strong team - to ride those setbacks and make them unimportant.

This is the difference at the moment between these two sides because they both get bad decisions, but one makes the contributions of other batsmen count for far more than out own do. This is why we all perceive these 'bad decisions' as being more detrimental to one side than the other and I accept that England 'seem' to have had more 'bad' decisions than SA, but it still shouldn't make any difference.