1. the psychology of keeping the foot on the throat, as it’s been charmingly analogised
and
2. the advantage of batting to a known target (or a known-ly unachievable one) in a known timescale.
oh, and 3:
3. If it really is the case, and significantly so, that the Lords pitch improves throughout, then, er, that.

But Australia only 5/2 against with a number of leading turf accountants.

In the morning: 8 overs of Fred and Anderson charging in with the new ball and pitching it up on off-and-off+1, with 4 slips and a gully or two – proper old school. A wicket or three should be forthcoming from that and the rest ought to be manageable. After lunch? Spin. (as Mr Benaud’s cadences would have it.)

Misleading slo-mo replays for establishing that a catch has carried, anyone? I’d say that if the ball ends with fingers underneath and it hasn’t bounced on the way, it must have been caught. You don’t catch (rather than trap) a ball on the ground before it bounces back up, let alone somehow slither yer fingers round under it in one smooth split-second motion.

(btw @139 ‘for enforcing’ should read ’ for not enforcing’)

Or not

Obviously things looking entirely different by 12:40 BST. But it wasn’t that implausible before the start that Aus could have been 110/0 rather than 90/3 by now. After all fortunes/form have been oscillating wildly thus far on both sides.

In any normal continuation, the bext you can say is that the draw is ever so slightly on -or on’ ish would maybe be better.

Mine can be found here:

Enforcing the follow-on was the pub-commentary option, batting again was the professional option

Why would a team enforce a follow-on? Largely, for the reason the rule was introduced – because you think you might run out of time if you do not. This might be an element here, though to be honest, with two innings over before lunch on the third day, it shouldn’t be. You might also enforce if you were so far ahead you thought it likelier than not that you would win without batting again, though that didn’t sway Ricky Ponting here.

There might also have been an issue had the Australians been all out on the second evening (and the light been better) because you don’t really want to start your innings towards the end of the day – I don’t know what Strauss would have done in those circumstances. However, I’m pretty sure that whatever time the last two Australian wickets had fallen on the third morning, Strauss and the great majority of captains (those playing in games, that is, not those sitting in commentary boxes) would have batted again. They would have done so for all the usual reasons – because you don’t want to put tired bowlers out again immediately, because you want to bat the other side out of the game, because you don’t want to be chasing a fourth-innings target (as happened, for instance, when Vaughan declared on the third morning in this game).

Basically, all the reasons except time are in favour of batting again, and as, in most comtemporary Test cricket, runs are scored faster and less time lost (because play can be extended) than was the case two or three years ago, declarations are now less common than was once the case. Though I was present on the third day of this match twenty-five years ago, when Willis, having bowled out New Zealand in the morning session, chose not to enforce the follow-on – with a lead very close indeed to that which Strauss had yesterday.

I’d have been astonished if Strauss had put the Australians back in again. I’d also have been surprised had the commentary-box mob not slagged him off for it.

So, anyone still there willing to decry a team and a player on a single shot?

Let’s open a little bit of a bet: surely nobody on the Australian side will stall the game in the last pair of days ;-)