leicsmac

Stat hat: Brook has until roughly the end of the end of this series to get to 3000 Test runs to be the second fastest of all time to do it. He's currently on a little over 2500.

It's clear that they back themselves no matter the situation and the spirit there is more than just platitudes to the press. and that's really important in general and specifically in terms of getting better results. It's one of the reasons why I think the approach being applied now is worth defending so much when things go a little awry and some folks jump on it.

Fourth fastest by an England player in Tests. All of those apart from the top dog have come in the last few years. I'd lay good money that sometime soon, Jessop's record will be broken by one of these players.

Smith into demolition mode before the drinks break there.

Anyhow, in more science related news, not much of it good again: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynre7leyjo An $88m (£65m) satellite designed to detect releases of the planet-warming gas methane from oil and gas production, has been lost in space in a major setback for climate efforts. The MethaneSat satellite which had backing from Google and billionaire Jeff Bezos, was launched only last year aboard an Elon Musk SpaceX rocket. It was meant to collect data for five years on sources of the powerful greenhouse gas, which is responsible for nearly a third of human-induced warming, to help curtail the worst offenders. The Environment Defense Fund, the NGO which oversees the satellite, said that communication was lost ten days ago and is currently undertaking an investigation into what happened. Space is always difficult.

But he does appear to be able to choose if those senators are elected or re-elected in the first place. Hence all the noise about primarying those representatives that don't follow his agenda to the letter.

And now we're outside the era of Fed, Nadal and Nole winning everything in sight, that could happen again. Unless Alcaraz and Sinner are good enough to step into that gap.

Good. Then absolutely don't go to archive.is and enter in the address of the article above for the rest of it then As you intimate, there's no real good choices here, but perhaps the best bad choice is swallowing a bit of pride and getting closer ties on this matter with the EU and the Commonwealth nations. I will say though, authoritarian as they are, at least alignment with the Chinese on this particular matter may end up being a necessity to maintain civilisation as it is. Hopefully other places will pick up the slack that the US is leaving, but I see no reason whatsoever to believe that the current administration are going to do anything other than take a buzzsaw to science R and D (other than that which serves their interests, read; can be used to directly harm people) and a few senators squabbling about pork barrel spending isn't going to stop him, he's shown already that he's both able and willing to replace such senators that don't carry out his will with those that do.

Enough of a win against the current incumbents at the ballot box ASAP to hamstring further legislative changes and so prevent more "direct action" by those wanting to disregard the whole process which may then escalate things would likely be the most optimal way forward, but of course that carries risks of its own. It would likely be the best bad course of a whole series of bad courses, unless someone else has any bright ideas. Edit: As per my OP though, I really really hope that I'm wrong, for many reasons.

Get your money on, people. Value bet looking better by the day.

You may be right. I think it's reasonably true though that the greats - or most other than the one Slam wonders - in history tended to make their presence felt before that, though.

And a whole host of other names, too. It's unfortunate that there doesn't seem anyone capable to tread in Murray's footsteps.

Agreed. His best chance in terms of opponents is on grass, but he needs to get better on that surface quick, if today is any judge. As an aside, it's rather funny how different tennis, cricket and football crowds are to each other. Imagine what it would have been like if Cilic had been talking after the match at a football crowd after beating the home favourite today.

Exactly. Nightmare opponent for an early round, and so it proved. Just shows how much of a difference there is between the nearly men and the greats.

And again it shows just how barren British tennis is in terms of consistent high level performances and how much of an outlier Murray was in that regard.

Well, I'm torn between thinking that was piss poor when it mattered from Draper or Cilic winding back the clock. Maybe a bit of both.

It was rare that he starred in a bad movie. RIP.

That seems to be about the size of it, in the Anglosphere anyway. I suppose in other linguistic areas of the Internet it might be a little different.

Unfortunately he's (almost always) doing it inside the serve clock time.

Hopefully that is a turning point.

Why Draper is consistently going to Cilic's FH side (which he's lethal on) I cannot fathom.

...that's starting to look like a rather optimistic outlook. Come on Jack, sort it out. (Though Cilic is exactly the kind of player he didn't want to have to play early doors.)

Keep on with those reverse mockers, he's just put Siraj into the stand. I think there's a gap in quality between county and Test batting that better batters than Rehan have failed to bridge, but who knows? He brings more to the side in batting and bowling than Bashir though, so I stick with like for like.

Rehan for Bashir, I would think. No point in compromising what is still a strong batting lineup for the sake of including more than one spinner. Agree Bethell deserves his chance, and Archer (fitness of course depending).

Certainly agree you need to play the situation. Just see far too much reactionary stuff being piped in every time this team seem to be in a bit of a pickle that sometimes then seems a bit daft (and, oddly enough, not revisited by those who pipe it in) later.