Day 3 of the Fourth Ashes Test ended with England at 200 for 5 wickets (link). The task facing England is to have partnerships exceeding 50 runs per wicket and the challenge facing Australia is to keep partnerships below 50.
So far, the partnerships have been: 10, 15, 141, 9, 21. The partnership between Rory Burns and Joe Root (141) lifted England above the rate required. At that stage, England were 16 runs ahead of the required rate.
These data encourage me to think about how teams prepare for games and the scenarios they use to deal with the must (link) part of their roles.
Photo Credit
End of the Day (Coral, Twitter)
Postscript
England scored 301 in their first innings (link).
Might setting time as a target be better than runs? With a second innings available, England are not *required* to score as many runs as Australia in the first innings to win, only to score one more after two innings. England might instead plan to bat for long enough to prevent Australia from winning.
Hello, David. Thank you for making a very good point. I thought that this was a game England could win … and needed to. I have been looking for a measure to check whether a team was on target. The run rate worked for me in the ICC ODI so I wanted to see what the Ashes might bring. I hope you are enjoying the fourth test.