AKCJ

It's all on Winks IMO. I've seen enough from the opening few weeks to trust Cifuentes' judgement of a character. If he doesn't think Winks is all in then I don't think he should be playing. What I would say is that it's been clear throughout his time at Leicester that Soumare is a bit of a world beater in training. Maybe Cifuentes just needs a few games to realise that he's bone idle. Can't imagine he'll have too many starts left in him when Barry Bannan sprints past him next week.

It is incredible how some people view the game. There's a bloke near me who thinks the only important thing for a striker is pace. Loves Daka. Thought Musa was treated unfairly. Thinks Ulloa is a carthorse etc etc. Ayew has plenty of genuinely good attributes needed to be a moderately successful striker at this level. But he's slow, doesn't press, lacks a goalscoring instinct and isn't a great dribbler. He'll be absolutely perfect to bring off the bench. Someone that can look after the ball, draw fouls, bring our talented wingers into play etc.

£28m is a mental amount of money to spend for him IMO. Hope we have a sell on clause. Attacking midfielder with 3 goals in over 4.5k minutes in the Prem.

Rudkin has £50k a week for the next 4 years with McBurnie's name on it.

Has there ever been a more pointless footballer? What does he do?

Couldn't argue with that!

Jaiswal would be right up there with him but absolutely one of the best.

Duckett averages 47 under Ben Stokes with an SR of 87. He's been a fantastic addition to the team and is one of the first on the plane for me.

I get that the bowlers have been mostly flogged all summer but pretty much every test was like a seesaw of @StanSP and I constantly thinking we've ****ed it and arguing with each other for the other being too pessimistic Every game has been balanced on a knife edge that has tipped from side to side. Every game has had massive drama at some stage.

Aussie pitches have been very seam friendly for a few years now. England will turn up with Jamie Overton banging it in on a short length. England's problem from day 1 under McCullum is that they've not been adaptable. It's like they decided how every game was going to be played in a meeting on day 1 and haven't actually looked at conditions, form or availability.

Stokes and Woakes might call it a day after the Ashes too. Would be the ideal time to have a reset.

There will be very, very few changes to the Ashes squad. It's clear they've been building up to it for years. I would imagine that (unless they have a very good series) the likes of Pope and Crawley will be dropped afterwards.

No I agree. But getting yourself out of match winning positions by playing ridiculous shots needs to be curtailed. He played a (mostly) sensible innings to get his hundred but then proceeded to just give his wicket away. Right when England had India by the knackers.

I would argue the opposite. The 2005 Ashes was played to a phenomenal standard whereas I think both sides in this series have played some pretty miserable stuff at times.

I've always thought overhead conditions are more important in England than the pitch. I think England comfortably chase that if it's a bright sunny morning. Ball was doing nothing until the rain brought the clouds down last night and this morning. Not many batsmen can survive in those conditions.

I think that Crawley and Duckett going after bowlers works but the further you go down the order the less it makes sense to me.

OH YEAH!

So anyway, glad to get that Test shite out the way. Who else is looking forward to The Hundred?? Anyone?!??

It was a big couple of days for 'Bazball'. Proper killer blow right before the Ashes. A lot to think about now.

Crawley's crisp packet hands as well!

Shubman Gill and Prasidh Krisna owe Siraj a beer. Bailed them out big time there.

Game over. Well played India!

Fair play to Atkinson here as well. Batting this well with bollocks the size of watermelons can't be easy.

I don't think he has it in him to hit the ball