England (Swann apart) looking toothless on a flat pitch with no cloud cover.

No doubt that will mean either Finn, Tremlett or Onions in for the next Test in place of Bresnan, while Broad retains Golden Child status. Presumably his old man has some compromising pictures of Geoff Miller from their playing days.

Oh, and David Warner. The pantomime villain who fell into the orchestra pit. Clarke clearly too scared to tell him to stop being a halfwit and wasting reviews.

I suspect he may currently be finding that his coach spoils the stereotype of all fat people being jolly.

Maybe he thought it was such a good decision, he just wanted to see it again

Come on Manchester lets have some rain!!

For the amount of runs we get from the likes of Bairstow, Bopara and Morgan, we may as well pick an all rounder like Stokes, Woakes, or maybe Rashid.

Some decent batting in the middle session today, but we're still in the brown stuff. Need Prior, Broad and Swann to bat well, but suspect we'll bowled out for around the follow on score.

Bad captaincy from Cook this afternoon. Had a chance to put their openers in some pressure with the new ball, at least for a few overs. Instead just let them get 3 or 4 singles an over without taking any risks at all. Now just reduced to time wasting, which generally comes back to bite teams.

They need to develop a protocol to cover the use of DRS that everyone understands and implements. For example, it seems to be accepted that Hotspot doesn't always pick up faint edges, but its much less likely that it will show a hotspot when there hasn't been an edge. So, allow the 3rd umpire to overrule an LBW decision if hotspot shows the batsmen hit it, or to give a caught behind. But if there's no hotspot stick with the umpire's decision. That could still result in wrong decision such as Khawaja's. But it would reduce the incidence of the bigger crime, when the 3rd official wrongly overrules a correct decision by the umpire, or overrules a decision which is 50/50.

They need to keep using the technology in order to give the manufacturers an incentive to improve it. If they could only get Snicko to work quicker,many of the controversial decisions in this series would have been avoided.

I wish the commentators would stop referring to it as a flat pitch. It's nowhere near as flat as our powder puff bowling made it look.

Umpire's Call is ruining DRS.

The presumption that the onfield umpire was right, even when there is no evidence to support that decision (e.g. Khawaja) is a nonsense.

If there is evidence that a player is out (and I extend that to lbw calls as well - just clipping the stumps is still out) then give them out, whether the original call was a howler or marginal.

Likewise, if there is no evidence to support the original on-field decision, overturn it. Stop being precious about upsetting the standing umpire.

The problem with getting rid of the Umpire's Call, is that basically then all they will be doing is counting the 6 balls an over and giving any wides - they already go upstairs for a no ball to check even when all three stumps have been smashed over, and I don't think that is what the ICC wants, they still want to have the human element in the game to control the decisions.

But if you have technology and are going to use it, they need to simplify how it's used and how they get to decisions - sticking with or overturning.

The only way any decision should be over turned is if there is clear evidence to the contrary given by the on-field umpire. Like KP for instance, given out caught behind, yet hotspot shows no mark on the bat, whether there was a noise or not - so should have been changed and given not out, as that is what the technology they use shows. If they had Snicko, then it might have been different, but they don't

Same with lbw's, given not out on the field and if hawkeye says it's hitting - clipping or smashing all 3 over - then that is out, and should be overturned!

Whats the point in having the use of technology if you go against what the evidence is showing the 3rd umpire??

Where the ball pitched and where it struck the pad is not open to any question - it's a matter of historical fact which hawkeye shows you. But after striking the pad, it's a best guess only. There's a margin of error which has to be accounted for. It strikes me that the margin is far too large at present - half the ball hitting any part of the stump or any of the ball hitting at least half a stump would probably do - but that's why it's there.