Another day, another ridiculously early start…anyone around?

Good morning, Pratik. How long do you reckon Dhoni will last?

Heh. Dravid out. Serves me right for being mean.

Morning all, can’t hang around long - am pretending to be an Indian wicket (groan - poor joke, bad taste, apologies). Honestly though, loads of work to do. See you all later.

I foresee some testing short balls to Pathan from Hoggie.

And that’s lunch. Good cricket. Hopefully, my slow and intermittent Internet connection will have miraculously fixed itself by the time I come back in 40 mins. For now, gotta go do some of that work. Jess, are you watching the game on the telly?

Neither do the Germans. Our Press Officer works from the office here just one or two days a week - and she hates cricket. Grrr. Of course, she comes to work just when things get interesting and makes me turn my radio off.

Just a quick post to congratulate Will on his piece on England débutants on “Cricinfo” to-day - and to wonder why he only talked about batsmen?

Well hopefully that is the last of Ian Bell’s career for the time being. I think he can slip down the pecking order behind Cook, Trescothick, Vaughan and Shah. I’m sure he’ll be recalled one day, just hopefully not for a decade at least. Congrats go to Jimmy Anderson, who I think has been treated rather poorly by the England setup recently, by being 12th man for such a long stretch. He’s obviously one of those bowlers who thrives on confidence, so maybe this innings can be a springboard to recapturing some of his form of a couple of years ago. Hopefully he can add a bit of consistency, which it looks like he has done in Mumbai, with some excellent economy figures.

Laugh! Cricinfo bugger up the scorecard again and Udal appears to be playing by himself!

hey rachel–try willowtv.net. pretty cheap streams. good to know another cricket tragic in HK.
and now, a praise to the much maligned curators in india–all 3 wickets were firmer than usual. no wonder we’re seeing such bountiful promise from young quicks. is the next genof pace aces slowly coming thru? edwards, anderson, plunkett, munaf, asif, sreesAnth, tait…hallelujah.