You are right there FF,i don't think any of us on here would choose Prior as the keeper but he has done nothing wrong on this tour so deserves a bit of slack.Some people though just won't let sleeping dogs lie and have to find fault with the tiniest of details.

For now Prior is the man in possession and unless he starts keeping and batting like Geraint Jones did he will get my support.

His batting in the last two innings has been excellent. I am sure he would have scored a ton today had he not been running out of partners. Promotion to number six if Bopara is playing isn't unreasonable.

Greg,

Completely agree. The problem is that some people get a bee in their bonnet and nothing will make them see otherwise. As far as I was aware, Prior made no errors in the last Test, and has played well here, so why find fault when there is none?

The main fault seems to be technical, but I have some some players in my time who are technically brilliant, but couldn't score a run, I have seen some other guys who were frankly ugly in the way they played, but they would score tons of runs. Ultimately Wicketkeeper are there to take the chances that come there way, in the same way that bowlers take wickets and batsmen score runs, as long as they do that who cares how they do it!!

Good partnership building up now between Vandort and Jayawardene,we could do with breaking it tonight.

Surprisingly Vandort is playing a few shots,first time for everything i suppose.

There's a good reason for worrying about the technical side of things: batsmen are right to worry about tending to get their front foot down too early (as it can result in the player having to play around the pad and overbalance to the off side); bowlers are right to worry about keeping the action simple, straight and easily repeatable (as they will not always find the ball's coming out nicely and need to be able to bowl effectively, without spraying the ball around, whilst they try and rediscover some rhythm) and glovemen are right to worry about their footwork and leaving slip catches to the slips (as leaping gymnastically for one handed takes and poaching slip catches might bring an appreciative roar from the photographers but does increase the odds on chances being missed).

It wasn't a slip catch though.Obviously not having seen it you can't comment properly,it was taken between keeper and 1st slip.

So I gather from Milo.... but if that's the case... what the **** was he doing only getting one hand on it?

Catching the ball!!

As Vaughan discovered, it doesn't matter how a player is caught, it gets written in the book the same way!! Yes if you are technically correct you are less likely to make mistakes, but if you aren't technically 100% and still make the catch who cares!!!

For me this is just nit picking. Cricket is not a sport than relies on technical precision in every element, if you want that, watch Strictly Come Dancing!

Yes, absolutely, then assuming Hoggard is fit, replace Broad (who admittedly has done excellently) and bring in Swann, thus bringing about the perfectly balanced English bowling attack, as I suggestes earlier.

I don't have any major problem with Prior taking the first catch with a dive, although I've just seen the replay and it was heading to first slip. Nevertheless, every 'keeper does it- I'm pretty sure Dujon and Evans did it, just to name two. I suppose Prior wouldn't come in for such critcism if he wasn't such a complete idiot- those cries of "Awww..." accompanying every push to mid-off can get a little tiring. I'd like to do the same to him if he was at the crease, and see how he'd like it. But then of course, I'm the one who'd end up being sent to the ref's office, right?

So 105-2 when the light went,match is evenly poised but the over rates are pathetic for both sides.We have lost 12 overs in 2 days and they started 30 minutes early to try and counteract that,when you consider Murali bowled 47 overs it is extremely poor to have lost so much time already.England being 1-0 down may regret that.