Today was one of those frustrating days at the cricket, with rain ensuring a wash out of the first session and then the players coming on and off the pitch at regular intervals during the rest of the day. Certainly England would’ve been hoping for no rain interruptions at the start of the day to allow them the opportunity to push on to 400 and ensure that Sri Lanka had no way back into the game; however we have a situation where, dependent on the weather, all 3 results are theoretically possible.

As for the batting, Hales showed a new found maturity and batted well, mixing some big attacking shots with some nice nudges to keep the scoreboard ticking over. This has been a criticism of Hales in his short career so far, in that he seems to get himself bogged down with an inability to turn over the strike and then gets out looking for the big shot (see his dismissal to Herath in the first innings); however both yesterday and today, he seemed to be pick able to pick gaps in the field to relieve the pressure. Graham Thorpe he is not, but it does show that he has the mental ability to look at his game and try to improve certain areas that have been holding him back. It was a shame that he missed out on a century and I do think it will be a weight lifted as soon as he reaches three figures, but out of all the un-established batsmen in this team, he is the one that looks most secure in his position.

As well as Hales batted, he really should’ve been out a couple of times, especially after being bowled off a ‘no ball’ that admittedly kept low. It does seem a complete mockery that a batsman can be reprieved by the third umpire on review for a no ball, but that the opposite, where an umpire makes a mistake with a no ball call, cannot result in the batsman being given out. Cricket really doesn’t help itself at times and Sri Lanka can rightly feel aggrieved at some of the umpiring decisions they’ve received in this Test, especially with the ridiculous ‘umpire’s call’ methodology used with DRS at the moment. I believe that this is likely to change ASAP after the ICC reviewed the current protocol and in my opinion this change can’t come quickly enough.

The afternoon passage of play was an odd one and did have me shaking my head in disbelief at times. I appreciate that Hales had a hundred on his mind and so didn’t want to be ultra aggressive (though his strike rate was decent), but Cook’s innings really wasn’t what we were looking for given the pursuit of quick runs. I’d have personally put Moeen ahead of him in the order and asked him to try and bash a few runs before tea, with the view of a declaration just afterwards; however Cook came in at 7 and proceeded to nudge and prod the ball about. Sure Cook did finally play some shots after the 2^nd rain delay after tea, but by then it was almost 6:30pm and he still only ended up with a strike rate of 56, meaning that England had almost wasted an hour to have a go at the Sri Lankan batsmen this evening. I slightly facetiously posted on Twitter that the captain was protecting his series average; however can you imagine if that had been Compton who had managed a red inker with a strike of just over 50 and England needing quick runs? There would’ve been howls of anger from Newman & Selvey etc that he couldn’t score quickly enough and that he was potentially costing England the game. I bet we don’t get that  narrative applied to the Captain tomorrow! As with everything in the MSM, what gets reported tends to be through their very ECB rose-tinted spectacles…

As for tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if the pitch does break up at all and does offer some turn for Moeen, as the 12 overs this evening from England’s bowling unit weren’t exactly threatening. You do feel that Moeen could do with a few wickets in the 2nd inning to build his confidence in advance of the Pakistan series and this pitch should offer him far more assistance than either Headlingley or Durham. You do also feel that if England are going to win tomorrow, then they will need him to contribute with the ball. As for Sri Lanka, if they get through the morning session unscathed, then it’s not out of the question that they could chase this total down. Matthews, Chandimal and Kaushal are all destructive players and with the right platform, they could push on for the victory.

I won’t be able to see any of the game tomorrow, so any report does rely on me getting back from a work event at a decent time and getting to see some highlights. Anyway, Day 5 comments below:

What a difference a day and a bit of cloud cover can make, this Test which looked like it was ambling serenely towards a high scoring bore-draw, now has a bit of life in it.

England bowled tremendously in the morning, with both Woakes and thankfully Finn finding some much needed form with the ball to restrict Sri Lanka to 56-5 in the morning session. It does have to be mentioned that they undid some of their good work in the morning session by wasting the new ball when faced with a Silva and Herath (who has scored more runs than Joe Root in this series) counter attack; however if you had offered England a lead of 130 last night, they would have snapped your hand off. The fact that we bowled so well in the morning must have had the English management team scratching their heads, such was the ineffectiveness of the bowling unit yesterday, albeit in batsman friendly conditions. Perhaps they felt that they were just going to blow Sri Lanka away yesterday and it wouldn’t have surprised me if Ottis Gibson gave them a stern talking to last night. Whatever was said, it certainly worked.

With England maintaining a lead of 130, it was expected that the English batting unit, minus Captain CBE, would be able to bat Sri Lanka out of the game. Alas, this was not the case. Compton looked pretty good before he edged a decent delivery from Eranga, thus sadly signaling the end of his International career, Joe Root got an unplayable grubber (I didn’t think I would’ve be saying those words last night) and Vince had a brain fart in deciding to leave a delivery going down the slope. Vince has so far, got off rather lightly, considering he too has had a very poor debut series. An average of 13.5 in 3 Tests is not something that fills me with too much hope and with Compton now gone, the MSM will need someone else to fill up their pages, Vince could soon find himself in their firing line in the Pakistan series. The thing with Vince (and one could easily apply the same to Compton & Hales to a certain extent) is that he just doesn’t look an international player yet, more a player who dominated attacks in Division 2 but one that had a mixed season in Division 1 last year. Now I’m not advocating dropping Vince yet, as I believe a player needs 8-10 Test matches to prove whether he can cut it at this level and I certainly don’t want to go back to the late 80’s/early 90’s where players were given a couple of games then dropped back down to County level, but Vince needs to have a good series against a strong Pakistan attack, otherwise we’ll be looking a new number 5 as well as a new number 3.

England’s second innings collapse meant that poor Jonny Bairstow didn’t have much time to put his feet up and rest before coming out to try and save England’s bacon again. Indeed if I were him, I’d be having some strong words with my top order colleagues, no wonder the shot he finally got out to was so loose and there have been mistakes with his wicket keeping, he must be absolutely knackered! Indeed if England are going to get to a 400+ lead, which I feel they will still need to win the game, despite the odd ball misbehaving, a lot now is going to rest on Hales kicking on and scoring some big runs. Put this way, I can’t see a run a ball hundred from Captain CBE at number 9! That said, the weather doesn’t look too healthy over the next couple of days, so it may well be taken out of all our hands.

On a completely unrelated note, do have a read of the piece from David Hopps on county cricket and the rise of social media bringing it to new fans as opposed to the traditional press coverage, which has all but disappeared – http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/1024073.html. I thought this was a particularly well written and thought out article and it got me thinking around what more could be done to boost the popularity of our county game (although that could form a whole new piece). In essence it is still about access and money in my opinion, schedule the games when most people can see them live (i.e. Saturdays), negotiate with Sky, who only show a very limited amount of 4 day cricket, around streaming highlights packages of each day and each game on social media for free and of course, make the costs far more family friendly for attending. This is not rocket science, but will ever get done? Sadly I think we all know the answer to this.

Anyway, I’m off out to watch the football. Day 4 comments and thoughts below:

It’s on days like this that it is sometimes difficult to muster the will to write much about the game as from first observations nothing much really happened. The pitch looks like an absolute road with no seam movement or swing for the bowlers and a surface that is deader than John Cleese’s parrot. I said in my pre-match report that I felt that Lords would prepare a dead, flat wicket and unfortunately my cynicism towards the ECB has been proved right again, money before entertainment has been the order of the day in this Test.

With the pitch looking like something akin to Antigua in the 1990’s, England’s first innings of 416 looks no more than par on this pitch and dependent on how Sri Lanka bat in the first innings it could end up being at least 100 light as to what it should have been. As for the good today, Bairstow batted like a man in the form of his life and would’ve likely gone on to make a double ton had anyone stuck around with him and the Sri Lankan top three showed they have both decent techniques and some fight on a pitch that offers very little for the bowlers. As for the bad, England’s bowling attack again looked fairly military medium in it’s nature (always a worry when England come across flat pitches away from home) and Bairstow’s horrendous drop of Karunaratne, when it seemed more difficult to drop the ball than it did to take the catch (Atherton, Selvey and others may have tried to blame conditions at Lords, but for me, it was just a poor piece of wicketkeeping).

The Jonny Bairstow wicketkeeper conundrum is going to be something that rears itself time and time again. It isn’t just the fact that he keeps dropping chances, it’s the fact that the chances he has dropped are ones a club wicketkeeper should expect to take. Sure this is a dead Test (despite the amazing super series points on offer) but what happens when Bairstow drops Kohli on 1 in Mumbai over the winter? How many runs will that cost this England team in a series where you need to take every chance on offer? I can see why England are persisting with Bairstow at wicketkeeper/batsman, because quite frankly without his batting England would have been a complete shambles this series, but is it really prudent to pack the side with all-rounders who aren’t quite good enough at one or more of the disciplines (Bairstow with the gloves, and Moeen with the ball as an example) in the hope that they can score enough runs to compensate for our consistently woeful batting in the top order? Despite all the protestations of the progress that we have made in the Strauss era, we still don’t have a convincing opener, our number 3 is toast, our number 5 (albeit 3 games into his career) isn’t pulling up trees and our spin option looks as threatening as Min Patel. Sooner or later our lower order is going to fail to dig England out of a hole of their own making and the results are unlikely to be pretty.

A final note on the pitch again (sorry pitches are a big bugbear of mine), no-one wants to see sides being consistently rolled out for under a hundred (unless it’s Australia, then it’s supremely hilarious), but equally no-one wants to see 500 vs. 500 on featherbed either. This pitch is not like Adelaide where things are likely to start happening on Day 4, this is Lords and the chances are the pitch won’t change over the next 3 days. The reason I mention this is ‘entertainment’ as after all, that is what sport is about. Cricket is about to go up against the Euro’s and the Rugby Union over the next couple of weeks and to stand a vague chance of retaining people’s interest, then it needs to produce some compelling action not the yawn fest that this Test match has produced (hell I’m bored of it and I’ve only watched the highlights on both days). Perhaps I’m missing the point again, after all the ECB has the type of people they want packing out the game at Lords over the weekend and they’re very happy to pay £75 a ticket et al, so why bother spreading the game to the masses, after all the average punter probably can’t afford to be a part of the ECB’s exclusive club. Let them have their football…

Day 3 thoughts and comments below:

One of the slightly annoying vagaries of the Test Match season is that work rather gets in the way of my ability to watch any of the game and I’m afraid that is the case today and will also be the case tomorrow too, with my only chance to catch up on proceedings being through the Channel 5 highlights.

From first glance, England very much have Jonny Bairstow to thank for digging them out of a very large hole of their own making on a flat and benign pitch at Lords. Fair play to Sri Lanka who bowled well and tightly on this pitch, but it was an often repeated story as England constantly threw away their wickets at regular intervals, with only James Vince being able to convincing argue that he got a good’un. Hales’ mow at Herath showed that he is not an international class batsman as of yet and Compton’s fidgety, sometimes painful innings was bought to an end when he nicked off chasing a wide one. It is hard not to sympathise with Compton as a fan of the game, he has worked hard to get his chance but it just hasn’t happened for him at Test level. This will now have been his 16^th Test in an England shirt (and fair play to Bayliss who has resisted the MSM pressure to give him a decent run in the side) but he just hasn’t scored the necessary runs, nor convinced that he can operate at this level and so the search for a new number 3 will now start in earnest. The vultures over at the MSM of course didn’t have any sympathy mind declaring that it had been a waste of everyone’s time to pick Compton in the first pace:

https://twitter.com/Paul_NewmanDM/status/740875179455303680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

A note to the likes of Newman and Berry, no it wasn’t a waste of time in picking Compton, he was picked because England felt that he was the best number 3 that we had. It hasn’t unfortunately worked out for Compton or England, but the real waste of a summer would be read the nefarious drivel that you consistently insult your readers with. Rant over.

As for captain courageous, he got a start, looked good and then got out in the 80’s. I’ve kept my powder fairly dry in the ‘is Alastair Cook a great of the modern game?’ This clearly gave us our answer for all to see, a great player would have gone on and made a big hundred against a weakish attack on a placid pitch, Alastair Cook did not, again. Cook’s average may look pretty healthy over the last 12 months but that is mainly down to a monumental score on a featherbed in Abu Dhabi and a couple of not outs and when you dig a little further, it’s not quite as healthy as his followers would tell you. Put it this way, when was the last time Cook scored a match winning hundred to ultimately turn a game in England’s favour? Answers on a postcard? The ability to do that on a consistent basis in my opinion, should be the mark of a great batsman, sure Alastair Cook is a very good international batsmen, but a great? I can give you 10,000 reasons why he falls short.

The Decision Review System came under scrutiny again today, when umpire Ravi, England’s favourite umpire gave a decision not out, when it looked for all the world to see that the ball was cannoning into leg stump. Now I’m not blaming S Ravi for the system not being up to scratch (though he is an extremely poor umpire in my eyes), it is more the fact that we don’t seem to be getting the right result from the technology. My own view is that either you trust the system implicitly and a batsman is given out if any of the ball is forecast to hit the stump or you ditch DRS completely, not stick with this halfway house which is making us all look a little bit stupid. The fact that the bowling (or batting team) loses a review for an umpires call is even more galling and something really does need to be done to address this issue ASAP.

Apologies for the slightly sparse report tonight, watching the highlights doesn’t exactly give me too much to go off.

Day 2 thoughts and comments below:

So we’re off to Lords tomorrow with England taking an 8-0 advantage in the Super Series there, so still absolutely everything to play for…said no cricket fan ever! In a grudging kind of way, you have to admire Strauss for managing to keep a completely straight face when he commented:

“We believe this will enhance the international game over all formats, at a time when we all recognise the need to keep all forms of international cricket exciting, relevant and engaging for the public.”

“We have to recognise that the world of cricket is changing very quickly. We’ve seen some fantastic innovations recently such as the first ever day-night Test Match in Australia last year, and I see this as something similar for all formats – a way of keeping them all relevant. It’s part of our ongoing efforts to modernise the game of cricket.”

Unfortunately for the Director, English Cricket, most cricket fans or those with even half a brain know a turd when they see one and despite the ECB desperately trying to add a hefty whack of polish to it, I’m afraid that no-one has been taken in by this colossal heap of bullcrap. Perhaps it’s best for the Director, England Cricket to go back to what he knows best i.e. instructing your friends in the mainstream media to continue to write souped up hagiographies

Anyway onto the cricket itself and I’m not sure the majority of the country is amazingly enthused about the prospect of watching this final Test Match in what has been a low quality and underwhelming series. As I suspected, England have gone in again with the same eleven, which hopefully provides Steven Finn with a chance to find some form and rhythm in time for the rest of the summer’s cricket. It also nicely provides the MSM the chance to have one more potshot at Nick Compton before he is cast adrift from the National team and I’m sure the likes of Pringle, Selvey, Newman and Stocks have their pencils sharpened in the hope of writing his international obituary with the same glee that they have writing about what an inspirational leader Alastair Cook is! I’m still not quite sure what Compton has done to upset the MSM apart from not scoring that many runs and not being Joe Root, but it seems he has rubbed up the wrong people and that is basically that for him. I will eat my proverbial hat if he is picked for the first Test of the Pakistan series.

With Compton seemingly on the way out, social media and Sky has been awash with views around who is going to replace him at number 3. It has been mentioned that there is the possibility of Vince moving up to 3, Bairstow to 5 and Buttler to come in at 7, though I think that is highly unlikely considering that Vince hasn’t exactly been prolific in his first couple of Tests (despite Andy Flower’s assertions that he is the new Don Bradman) coupled with the fact Buttler hasn’t played any type of red ball cricket this summer and is unlikely to get much practice before Pakistan start their tour. As a result, many are casting around County Cricket for a potential replacement with Robson, Westley and Borthwick being the names that keep cropping up. Scott Borthwick for me is the most interesting name on the list and one cannot praise him highly enough for having the aptitude, work ethic and skill-set to turn himself from a bowling all rounder to a fixture at number 3 for Durham. Indeed he has had a fantastic season so far scoring three hundreds for Durham, including two in one match, in what is one of the hardest grounds to consistently score on in the County Championship. The fact that Borthwick had been so consistent in recent times, got me thinking why he hadn’t been mentioned before now and why the sudden clamour for his inclusion? One could rightly point out that it’s the number of runs he has churned out for his county this year or it could also be pointed out, if one was a little more cynical, that he has fairly recently been signed up by those lovable rogues, ISM! Perhaps I am being a little churlish and I actually do think Borthwick deserves a chance to showcase his skills on the international stage, especially with the bonus of his leg spin bowling and upcoming trips to Bangladesh and India, but it also does worry me the about seemingly large amount of power that this agency holds over our selectors. Perhaps I’m being paranoid about this, but then again perhaps I’m not (and Katy Scott’s – @ithilienorthend – excellent piece on the growth of ISM is worth a read – https://ashestourist.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/the-impact-of-ism/). Whatever the exact truth is, it seems clear that they have the ears of those in power and if I was an aspiring England cricketer, then being represented by Vaughan and the like would certainly be an interesting prospect. I’m awaiting the Ajmal Shahzad for England bandwagon to pick up over the summer with baited breath.

As for Sri Lanka and their chances of performing at Lords, I would suggest that their batting has a better chance of clicking as it did in the second innings at Durham, than their bowling does to cause England too many worries (especially as all of their first choice bowling attack are either injured or have been reported for dodgy actions). The main reason why I think the Sri Lankan batting attack is likely to fare better is that the Lords pitch is likely to be flatter than an England performance having won a series and judging by the state of the Lord’s pitch this year in county games, a high scoring draw is far more likely than any other result, a 3 day Test Match this won’t be. As I mentioned in my customer experience piece, Lords is the ECB’s cash cow, this is where they make their money, so why take the chance of a Sri Lankan collapse to put at risk guaranteed income from the ECB’s preferred type of fan? This isn’t those ghastly Tests up North (in the ECB’s eyes not mine) where fans refuse to spend £75 a ticket and to nicely line the ECB’s coffers by purchasing £85 lunch hampers, this is the real deal now and something that needs to be protected….

On a final note, I wonder if anyone else has tried to put themselves through the abject pain of watching the WI, Aus & SA tri-series in the West Indies? This surely has to be a lesson to all cricket administrators worldwide that playing meaningless series on substandard pitches and then trying to sell this to the paying public is an act of extreme folly. In fact, I would suggest that this has done more harm than good, with the pitches displaying variable bounce and extreme spin from the first over, this was not a spectacle that will live long in the memory. Sure, no-one wants to see 400 plays 400 in every game, but paying fans do want to see batsmen being able to get the ball off the square and a pitch that doesn’t resemble a Day 5 pitch in Chittagong – no wonder cricket uptake in the West Indies is massively on the wane…

Day 1 thoughts and comments below…

Well England did what they needed to do in the end, however they didn’t make things easy for themselves with the way they performed in the field today. Indeed despite Cook and Anderson hitting the headlines for achieving respective landmarks both with the bat and with the ball, the last two days seems to have dredged up more questions than delivered answers around the team make up.

Let’s make no bones about it, they bowled pretty horribly this morning albeit on a pitch that was not conducive to fast bowling. Anderson aside, England looked pretty toothless against stubborn resistance from Chandimal and Herath with Finn and in particular Moeen looking pretty anonymous with the ball. Much as been written about Steven Finn in the press over the last couple of days and it is clear that he is struggling with his action as he has been all season (though I’m not sure I can agree with Mike Selvey’s tweets trying to clear any arguments that David Saker might have been responsible for this.) As I mentioned a few days ago, Finn is the ultimate confidence player and be it through injury or through poor form, his confidence looks pretty shot at the moment. I think he desperately needs some overs with the ball in the county championship when the white ball season kicks off and for that reason, I would leave him out of the one dayers. George Dobell’s piece on Finn is definitely worth a read and a far more eloquent appraisal of the situation that I can muster – http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-sri-lanka-2016/content/story/1021609.html

The same thing can be applied to Moeen, who today was going for 5 an over on a pitch that was starting to take some proper spin. We all knew that Moeen was originally a batsman who also offered us a part time spin option; however there had been performances that also gave us hope that he could perform the task of being England’s main spinner one day. Whether it’s a confidence thing or an ability thing, Moeen’s limitations were shown for all to see in the Pakistan Test series in the UAE and I’m not sure he has recovered any semblance of confidence since that series. I think today clearly shows that England can’t rely on Moeen bowling teams out in the fourth innings of Test Matches at the moment. A true international class spin bowler is still very much on England’s wish list, unfortunately there still aren’t many queuing up on the horizon.

As much as England’s bowlers bowled poorly this morning and they definitely did, our predicament was not helped by Cook the captain, who was happy to let proceedings drift until we finally managed to dig the opposition out. This has been on my bugbears with Cook’s captaincy since he took on the role, that when Plan A and sometimes Plan B don’t work, then there is nothing left in the captaincy tank (MS Dhoni was another captain who seemed to freeze when the going got tough). Why not change the field around, bring on a part-time bowler or ask the bowlers to change the angle of the attack? Something, anything to try and prise a wicket out, but no we just seemed to plod on doing the same thing in the hope that Jimmy Anderson could find a bit of magic to eventually pick up a wicket. It is also right to highlight that Bairstow dropped a fairly regulation chance to get rid of Chandimal during the morning. This is always going to be the problem when you want a batsman who keeps wicket, rather than a wicketkeeper who can bat in your team. Bairstow did not have a good day with the gloves routinely spilling deliveries or struggling to take them cleanly. I do think his keeping on the whole has improved since the winter, but it is clear that he is very much a work in progress still and the wicketkeeper debate looks set to rumble on over the summer. Let’s just hope he has got his poor day out of his system for the rest of the summer.

Though, I have been critical of England’s bowling and captaincy today, this should not take away anything from the application of the Sri Lankan batsmen. Herath played a fighting, nuggetty innings for his team (though quite what Chandimal must have thought when he started to trying to reverse sweep when he was stuck on 98 not out, must be something else) and of course it was a classy hundred from Chandimal who looked an assured and classy batsman. Sri Lanka desperately need Matthews and Chandimal to lead from the front in what is a very inexperienced top order, but the signs today were good that Chandimal has the ability and temperament to score runs regularly at this level.

A final note has to go to Cook the batsman. It would be totally churlish of me not to congratulate him on reaching a memorable landmark. Cook without doubt is a fine international player and deserves praise for his longevity and ability to squeeze out the volume of runs that he has. Is he a world-class player? I would suggest his stats show that he isn’t quite in the same league as the Sangakkara’s, Tendulkar’s, Waugh’s and Dravid’s of this world, who were all world class, but that shouldn’t take anything away from the fact that he has been a fine opener for England in years gone past. Let’s now hope that with this landmark burden removed from his shoulders, that he can find some form again and score the runs that this England team needs him to do.

Day 3 finally saw something that has been missing from this entire series, a bit of fight from the Sri Lankan tourists. After we took the last two Sri Lankan first innings wickets in the morning, it could be genuinely feared that this contest wouldn’t last until Tea, such has been the fragility of the tourists batting line up, however thankfully there was no such repeat of the first innings.

The Sri Lankan batsmen did the basics well, left the ball outside off stump, moved their feet better, didn’t go lunging after the ball on a fifth stump line and scored runs when the loose deliveries came. As I said yesterday, there are absolutely no demons in this pitch, nor has there been any swing throughout the whole 3 days, which just shows how meek their first innings performance actually was. All of the Batsmen pretty much got a start except Karunaratne, who doesn’t seem to know where his stumps are, and Silva, Chandimal and particularly Matthews all looked good on a docile batting surface. There will be hopes in the Sri Lankan dressing room that Chandimal in particular can kick on tomorrow, as no doubt he is a decent batsmen, but in my opinion, he was batting two slots to high in the batting order in the first innings.

As for England, it was a frustrating kind of day. I think the bowlers almost expected Sri Lanka to roll over again and they seemed to lack the nip that they had in the first innings. They all bowled fairly tidily against a much-improved batting performance on a fairly placid pitch, but there wasn’t the same intensity as there was yesterday afternoon. . It could just be that being out in the field for 5 sessions has jaded them somewhat, however you guess they will want to remove Chandimal and Siriwardana fairly early with the new ball in the morning; otherwise another frustrating session tomorrow morning might be in order. I thought Moeen bowled well, including an absolute peach of a delivery to get rid of Thirimanne and Woakes again was the quickest of the seamers, but all in all it looked like a day for batting

As for the match situation, England are still massive favourites to win the game tomorrow from here; however if Sri Lanka can eek out another 200 runs or so then England might face a tricky chase as you would expect this pitch to start to deteriorate at some point over the next couple of days. Amusingly, Sri Lanka also have the opportunity to ruin the Cook 10,000 runs party penciled in for his mates at Lords, indeed the cynic in me would quite like to see him stride out to the middle chasing a target of around 12 or so in front of a half empty Chester-Le-Street, but that’s just my cynicism getting the better of me!

Day 4 comments below….