The view from the qthree commentators was that Cooke had delayed his declaration a little too long, but I had a bad feeling after the first four overs when both Hogan and Lloyd had gone for sixteen runs each with them both providing too many balls that offered the batsman easy leg side boundaries and the writing was well and truly on the wall at lunch.

I think us cricket fans need to recognise that a lot of modern day pitches do not deteriorate as the game goes on any more, they just flatter and flatter and make for an uneven contest between bat and ball - the pitch at Headingly was the same and I think this latest one was a terrible pitch.