I've no issue with Farrell. Atleast she's well researched and enthusiastic for county cricket.

Definitely a bit less in it today. Essex were pretty relentless to be fair.

Clouding over again...

Terrific effort from Hain under the circumstances.

Totally agree. It would do the lad a disservice if he was just as a batter only at 7. Which actually happened last season a couple of times. If he doesn't keep, it should challenge him to progress his batting even further.

He's in a good place.

I remember Burgess standing out as being really untidy when he first came. Kai is not only that but he's actually dropping catches as well. Having said that Burgess improved so much it was scarcely believeable, he could actually affect the game from behind the stumps, brilliant keeper. Kai can improve, I reckon he will, he has too if he's gonna keep regularly, lets be honest. Re. his batting, he looked like a white ball batter playing red ball last season to me, however this season he looks far more assured outside his off stump and is developing a back foot game that he didnt really have last year. Can he bat in the top 5/6? We'll see.

Incredibly good grab from Walter to dismiss Thompson who was looking good. And then a minute they all walk off for rain, so frustrating.

Clearly a bad toss to lose, the most perfect bowling conditions we've seen for a while at Edgbaston. As has already been acknowledged this pitch will likely flatten out and slow right up on days 3 and 4.

Team selections probably about right, Woakes was never gonna play every game in this block, thought he bowled v Surrey but when he took that 2nd new ball v Sussex on Monday morning he did look jaded...he'll be back.

Kai Smith has made even further improvements with the bat this year particularly from a technical point of view but his glovework, and I appreciate this won't go down well here, remains way off im afraid. He too will be back though.

Pleased to see Zen's form for the 2's rewarded.

No specialist spinner. Barker in the 14. Green seamer incoming perhaps?

Tell us you haven't watched the first 2 games without actually telling us you haven't watched the first 2 games...

Can't see how Malik gets in Friday unless theres an injury, despite his form for the 2's.

Has signed for Yorkshire...

For Friday it probably depends on who needs a rest or not. Oscar Rees for the Cricketer seemed to insinuate that Gilchrist and Booth will rotate. Woakes might rest here as he's still working back after a bad injury. I wouldn't look to make wholesale changes unless people need their workload managed.

Woakes, despite struggling v Sussex, is still our best bowler in my opinion.

I thought the Sussex attack was also very 'samey', it just bowled better than ours.

He'd opened the bowling for Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield as recently as Feb and he was bowling serviceable off breaks at the SCG in the Ashes, he's definitely an all rounder. He looked a decent bowler for us last year. Against Surrey and Sussex thus far though he's looked ordinary. Wonder if we're using him wrong?

Feel like there's been a trend across the country with pitches getting flatter as the game goes on, broadly speaking. Maybe something to consider at the toss.

Ok, cheers

I've been fairly impressed with Thompson, he's about the only one who can pose a threat with the old ball and he's way better at the short ball tactic than Booth. I'd still back Woakes to get it right, whether he needs a rest or not is another matter.

Curious as to why Webster isn't bowling his offies? His seamers have looked extremely innocuous thus far.

What happened to him?

So frustrating. I said all game like it looked a decent batting track, a good cricket wicket in fact, Paul Farbrace said at the end of Day 2 it was flattening out and I just couldn't get that out my head.

Its really the done thing on this forum but sometimes you just have give the opposition credit and say "fair play", they bowled better than our guys did every day. Our guys just couldn't bowl well enough for long enough to create pressure. In the 4th innings Sussex got off to a bit of a flyer all things considered and despite losing 3 wickets inside the first 15 overs were already well into the chase going at 5 and over. Could Barney have been a little bit braver and kept attacking fields in for longer? We probably weren't bowling well enough in fairness.

Feel like we've been done trying to defend 300+ a few times in recent years. Teams do tend to get off to decent starts against us and you look up and they already seem to have the runs req below 240 and from there we're only 1 good partnership away from playing big time catch up.

I get what people are saying about the samey sort of nature of our attack but Sussex were no different, they just bowled better for longer.

I felt like after each sides 1st innings we were well in control however to be 20-4 in the third innings the game just became a dog fight.

Feels like a significant result already.

I still think we're in decent shape, no kneejerking just yet.