Certainly agree with Crawley long term. He's technically correct, has some good fluent scoring shots, and is tall and imposing. Its taken him a few innings to find some form, hardly surprising given the ridiculous tour schedule with virtually no preparation. Hameed (baby Boycott) has talent and I might persevere. I think his confidence is shot, not surprising given the top quality bowling he's faced. An upcoming Windies tour might help gain some confidence. Going back to Burns and Sibley would be a joke, there must be other option in county cricket to look at if not. Any batter with a reasonably sound technique would do for now.

Heroic stuff. Absorbing last two hours. It's why I think those of us who put Test Cricket at the pinnacle of the game, value it most.

A draw in the gloom. Umpires instructing the Australian captain that fast bowlers against the last pair, 'wouldn't be cricket' (as such) all made the finish one of the best matches for drama I've ever seen.

Burns and Sibley are both a better bet than Hameed in my opinion.

The bloke is simply bereft of shot.

As is Sibley who has one leg side scoring shot and that's it. Burns may have a few more shots but is a walking wicket at Test level. Both have been found out as expected given their awful techniques. Hameed may not be the answer going forward, but he is young, technically sounder, and I think still has potential.

Didn't work this time.

Unlucky. :)

In the old days the test side and one day side were pretty much the same. What has changed?

Even Boycott opened the innings in the one day World Cup final.

It’s all about opinion.:p

Yeah, and we were about 100 for no wicket, after 40 odd overs chasing nearly 300 in 60 overs !!

The introduction of pinch hitters and fielding restrictions is the reason we have horses for courses

I am sure Gavaskar scored slower than Boycott in the World Cup (if ever that was possible) haha

I was at this match - First ever in the World Cup Eng/Ind at Lords. England got a huge score and Gavaskar decided India had no chance of chasing, so opted for batting practice - India made something like 130 for 4 off 60 overs and lost by over 150 runs !!

That was in 1975 - Christ, that makes me feel old:o

Totally agree

But I do also think Hemeed lacks the variety of shots needed to be a good opener. He just looks like his one aim is to not get out (which of course is part of his job) but he also needs to get the scoreboard moving. He doesn’t seem to be able to do that very well.

If you want to feel any younger I was born a year after that :)

The older generation of Indian team has so much baggage from the empire they always tried to either draw or loose to England Kapil Dev said in a documentary, apparently he came in and said sod this and went for wins

The current teams are nothing like them.

True also he appears to be very fragile mentally

Absolutely, and great to discuss and see yours and everyone's opinion :p

Yep, I think you might be right WP. Time will tell, but he does have this in his favour :p

It's my favourite ever scorecard. Gavaskar faced 174 balls for his 36, including 1x4. I'm guessing the ball flew off a length & caught the edge of his forward defensive, running down to the 3rd man boundary....

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/...full-scorecard

There's also a good article on it here :

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/s...go-slow-500411

Thanks for the link to the article, the Indian team manager did not hold back in his criticism of Gavaskar's batting.

Apparenlty he was out caught behind the second ball, and did not walk......twat, poor Maiden had to endure the pain.

That last ball from Smith was almost as bad as Cummins’ to Stokes at Headingley.