Plubby

Bijan Robinson, RB, Atlanta @Lowerdeck

Austin Ekeler, RB, LA Kellen Moores @Maxx

We're doomed bring back our pie merchant

I was fairly sure that Saquon's numbers showed him to be the exception to the "RB's are plug-and-play" rule...but maybe i'm remembering wrong.

In for main, not for guillotine.

Am I right in saying the cutoff date for locking ADP is just when lists are due? And if I have two players whose ADP is in the same round, I would need to either spend a wildcard keeper, or spend a higher round's pick to secure them? Also, I can retain a player for as long as I am willing to spend an ADP keeper on them, but I can only retain them via Wildcard *once*, right?

Hell of a day one, a couple great performances on each side. Hopefully the weather dtays away. Hell of a day one, a couple great performances on each side. Hopefully the weather stays away.

What does that change? Sure, it's true, but it doesn't change anything about it being in the spirit of the game or not.

Fair comment on CDG. But it's more than that. Last year Ben Foakes stood by the stumps waiting for a grounded batsman to lift his foot (because of the way he was balanced) against Ireland and was lauded for smart thinking. Bairstow himself tried it IN THIS TEST Turns out this is just something England does on the regular and it's only poor form when it happens to them

Broad might be taking it a bit too far now making a song and dance at the umpire about when over is called. It's funny when he's doing it with our players, but you have to take the umpire's call with a bit more grace than that.

Does something like this bring about a rule change? How would you even make a rule to clarify this? I love that it's Stuart Broad getting stuck into us when it was off his bowling that Bairstow himself did it to Colin de Grandhomme.

Probably, I was more saying that it's irrelevant to any consideration of how you see it. Not sure if we're hopping on the back of a Sky feed or if our broadcaster is running their own feed, but there was an interesting few clips that Channel 9 here in Aus showed of Bairstow handling the short ball earlier in which he just ducks under, then stands up while looking down at the pitch and then wandering off. Didn't check once. Almost as if he thinks he gets to decide when the ball is dead himself. This was why I didn't like it at first. As I said before, the only thing that's turned me around on it is that Carey threw it so quickly that Bairstow hadn't even left his crease yet, and that Bairstow doesn't even check to see what the keeper is doing. You don't do that to a spinner because the keeper is *right there*, so surely you can wait a half-second to see what he's doing first. Like, how important is the mid-pitch fist bump at the end of the over that he had to leave without looking? As I said earlier, I reckon if he'd turned to check first, the umpire would have given him the benefit of the doubt.

My initial reaction was to liken it to a mankad, and I didn't like it. But Carey IMMEDIATELY threw it, and YJB immediately went off to bless the rains down at mid-on, didn't even turn around. Kind of funny that Broad made a song and dance about making sure the ball was dead when all Bairstow had to do was turn around...at all and I think he gets the benefit of the doubt. Also given he's the resident expert in the English camp of staying in his crease 😆 Likelihood of winning is, of course, completely irrelevant.

Well...that's controversial.

Good shout, Rishi. I like it, too.

Hell of a test. I have a collection of thoughts. Ollie Robinson, despite taking some wickets, had very little impact, except with his mouth. No issue with what he said in the media, but funny that our 8-11 outscored England's, if my maths is correct. No issue with the send-off either - just seemed a bit odd after Khawaja's just topscored. Contrast OR to Jimmy who I thought had tremendous impact despite a lack of wickets. Moeen did yeoman's work coming in completely cold and bowling that many overs, despite the onset of the injury. I thought the declaration was a good call. I was convinced Warner would go in those 20 mins. England should do well. Would like to see more from Pope and Brook, the latter of which seemed to be not much more good than a hit and a giggle. Root was immense, valuable with the ball too. Crawley did better in the first dig than I expected, haven't rated him but was a good knock. Thought we bowled poorly in innings one, and Cummins had to take a heavy lead from Stokes in terms of captaining ingenuity. All in all I don't take too much stock from the result. Should still be a belter of a series and honestly English weather is the only thing that could hold it back.

We're losing to BazBall in our heads here. We're not playing to beat England, we're playing to oppose bazball. Moeen Ali is looking like he'll be a matchwinner this test. Unfortunately, right now he looks like our only hope.

It does bear mentioning that the success of the Vegas expansion draft was also in part due to how badly the other GM's handled their rosters. Like, the Panthers (allegedly) trading Reilly Smith to Vegas so they'd take Marchessault is the one everyone is talking about it blowing up in their faces, but if you go back and look at the lists - sure the draft was 6 or 7 years ago or whatever but so much of it aged hideously. My team protected their two best players, one player with a NMC, and nobody else who survived to this year's team. And basically to a person, everyone thought they'd suck in year one. Teams wisened up the second time around, and the Kraken sucked in year one, and barely beat my crippled Avalanche to win a round this year. Maybe the expansion draft rules could use some slight tuning down - but i'd also be in favour of just leaving it for the future and see how much smarter teams will continue to get with the expansion draft.

Are you sure? Melvin Gordon, RB, Broncos @damhausen

I think it's actually @Slogger's pick. We all say crikey the same way, understandable mistake.

wat

Jaylen Warren, RB, Steelers @Maxx

Jakobi Meyers, WR, New England @damhausen

My bad, done.

Noah Fant, TE, Seahawks @Maxx