Well said, paulbear. I think Rhodes' all round contribution will not be at all easy to replace. He's been having a good season and has several more left in him.
Thanks for your efforts, Will, and good luck.

I'd probably cut the kid some slack. As a republican atheist, the words of God save the King have never meant a lot to me (apart from the bit about crushing rebellious Scots, but we don't get to sing that any more). In my bolshie youth, I might well have not sung along as a silent protest against a rather naff anthem but it would not have signified any lack of patriotic feeling.
These days, I am happy to mouth along to it as I know people get wound up about not singing.

Correct. I remember one incident in that series when England were well ahead in a 50 over game but in danger of being rained off without reaching the minimum overs. A catch came to Best who deliberately grassed it and chucked the ball back to the bowler to get the over finished. I don't think the bowler was too chuffed but it won the game.
County level cricket didn't really happen for Best and he eventually quit with a back injury, I believe.

One for people with long memories:
Which Warwickshire player captained England U19 against Sri Lanka U19 in 2010?

If his current form doesn't improve, I'm not sure Chris Woakes would make OUR squad.

Lancs and Northants play each other in their final game so they can't both catch us.

Same here, Terry. The first time I watched the Bears, Horner and Ibadulla opened the batting. A few years later, when Bob Barber arrived, it was by no means unusual to see that numbers 1 and 2 in the batting order were bowling together.
Always a really popular player, he'll be missed.

Don't worry. There's still Benjamin to come.

I don't think you can blame the batting this year. We have more batting bonus points than any other Div 1 side and many of the top order have big runs under their belt. Sure, Bethell and Mousley need to do better but with the number of players we have who are 30 or under and the lads coming through the age groups, the batting looks in good shape for now and future years.
What we can't do is bowl people out. We looked under strength at the start of the year and knew that we had a number of "fragile" seamers. Losing Hasan Ali to international call ups didn't help and the fact that Chris Woakes could only take one wicket in 71 overs makes you glad that England are paying his wages. But the lack of a wicket taking spinner (Danny Briggs is a good bloke but has never been much of a red ball player) and absence of decent cover for the seamers was a bad error and lies with management. Crossed fingers that we can eke out enough draws to stay up this year but serious bowling recruitment for 2025 needs to start now.

We ought to be able to stop them from scoring at 5 an over for a prolonged period. For once, they're using the whole ground at Taunton so there isn't a short square boundary. There are no fielding restrictions so we can have long on and long off back, together with a third man and fine leg. There is nothing in the rules to stop us "hiding" the ball outside off stump.
Might be worth letting them think they can do it, though. Draw remains favourite but if we could persuade Abell and Banton to hole out, it would be game on.

Somerset should be more interested in the win points than we are. Perhaps someone thought we could tempt them to offer up some buffet bowling?
Bit unambitious anyway.

Somerset should be more interested in the win points than we are. Perhaps someone thought we could tempt them to offer up some buffet bowling?
Bit unambitious anyway.

We've looked very much the better team here but will we be able to capitalise? The weather forecast for Wednesday is poor so we need to crack on tomorrow. Have to enforce the follow on if we want to win.

An hour of solid rain between 11 and 12. Looks like they will start again soon, which is actually a pretty good effort. Still rather dark overhead, though.

Is this Test squad meant to be a joke? Shoaib Bashir gets picked off the back of conceding 38 runs in an over when even his county don't think he's the best England qualified spinner available. Jamie Smith is a very promising batsman but I have never seen him keep wicket and I wonder if Brendon McCullum has. Again, his county don't think he's the best option.
We should have enough talent to beat the West Indies over 5 days if we just pick guys of known quality and play sensibly. There's no need for hunches and gimmicks: we tried that against Australia last year and ended up failing to win a series that was there for the taking. Come on: get serious.

The pitch doesn't look dissimilar to the one from a few years back when we collapsed against the off-spin of part-time bowler Tom Cooper. It's very green in the middle but brown and scuffed at the ends. It'll be interesting to see how it plays later in the game. With the weather forecast for the next few days being overcast, an in-form Chris Woakes could have a lot of fun.
A very, very good day for us. There was a lot of nibble off the pitch in the morning but Rhodes & Barnard saw it through and then we ended completely on top. Having put us in, Somerset will be feeling that they missed their chance.

And 38 taken off an over from Shaoib Bashir. Looks like England's Test attack is in great shape!

Ffs, Woakes has bowled 6 competitive overs in the last four months - and now he needs a rest???

There's the Eoin Morgan school of thought that says that the number of balls in a T20 is so few that you just swing at everything and keep swinging even if wickets fall. (Even more so in the Hundread.) He may have a point. The game is so short that it becomes hard to encapsulate performances in statistics that are separated from context.

Are you (hypothetically) talking about Tim Groenewald?