Lords, day three: Hopes for wash-out fade

Well, it looks like the Predictoron’s knickers are increasingly twisted by the day. First Alastair Cook fluking a ton, now Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell and Matt Prior all have defied the mighty Predictoron. Worse still, my chances of going on Monday seem less likely.

I am a little troubled at how one-sided the remaining series is likely to be. The Windies had ideal conditions for bowling and they allowed England to amass 550 runs. A lot of this is due to poor fielding (Collingwood escaped two dollies) but the rump of the blame should be given to the bowlers. They lacked discipline. Moments of pressure were quickly deflated by an England batsman knocking a two off his pads. Hopeless.

Let’s not take anything away from the batting though. Solid, grafting work by Collingwood and Bell in the morning, built up a formidable platform to allow an afternoon attack by Prior. I thought Bell played a particularly fine knock: chanceless and well-paced.

Prior made a century on his test debut at Lords. He smacked them all over the place in a run-a-ball hundred.

At first, I wasn’t too pleased about this. I saw Prior in an interview, he seemed really defensive and came across as an unpleasant human being. He referred to himself in the third person “Matt Prior has to do what Matt Prior can” which is something I hate will all my intestines.

However, in a post-match interview, his nerves melted away and seemed more personable. His BNP/terrorist appearance and chirpy demeanour reminded me of my brother. And you can’t hate family, right? So Prior gets my conditional approval.

So far, the West Indies are 83-1 and it really doesn’t look good for the poor blighters.