They have nowt in common, except:

That first hour of the first test today has to have been duller than any EU debate.

England batting 28 for 0 after 15 overs. Its a snorefest. Even the FDE look bored.

And my god there are some empty seats.

Lets hope it livens up. Soon

Nearly got the half century up, even though it's nearly lunch time!

Haven't seen scoring this slow since the early 90s.

errrr its suddenly woken up but not quite like I wanted.

Boris can exclusively reveal that there's a new EU working time directive coming in that will limit the length of an over to 5 balls in the morning and 4 in the afternoon.

Dammit, is nothing sacred to these Brussels mandarins?

Good to see the conditions favour the bowler for a change. It's not all about scoring at 6 an over all the time it's why it's called 'Test' cricket. Stokes innings has just showed it's not easy to go in and force the issue in these conditions. I reckon if England had won the toss and stuck Sri Lanka in this morning we'd be batting now!

it doenst help though when they arent even trying to score runs. They played the good balls first thing but left the bad ones alone. Sort of paid the price now.

Hales was a bit lucky, but its good to see him get runs. BIrstow is looking good. Who was the blokeon here that absolutely hated Birstow?

Going along at over 3 an over now, dunno what all the fuss was about...

Ah yes. I await his arrival with interest.

He was booted, I think.

You mean you booted him?

I'm sure I read earlier that Bairstow, since the start of last year, has scored 2300 first class runs at an average of 70. The lad just needed time to get to used to Test Cricket. Very few players walk in and are immediately successful. Glad Bairstow is proving the minority slagging him off completely wrong.

The move down to seven has helped massively as well. Seems more confident coming in at five down than three down.

Even in his earlier spells in test cricket when he wasn't making runs he had 'time' in playing his shots when you saw it live. This showed he had the raw materials to make it that many don't have, he just needed to sort out some weaknesses in his technique. He's still not a Joe Root but he's done that and is looking a damn good player. As a keeper myself I actually don't fancy him as a wicketkeeper and would like to see at some point him and Butler being accommodated together in team

Vince at 3 and Buttler with the gloves so Bairstow can move up a place or two is a much more sensible approach for us both in the short and long term

Except the ECB thought it was better to let Buttler play the IPL. So he is getting practice for one day and 20/20 games. They obviously dont care that much test cricket.

Buttler isn't in the Test team because after a prolonged chance to do so he didn't score enough runs. He played 15 Tests and didn't score a hundred. He's also not in the team because they've stuck by the team that won in South Africa. He'll obviously get another chance purely down to his talent but he can't argue with being out of the current eleven and him going to the IPL I'm sure is a worthwhile experience for him especially financially but the ECB are on very dodgy ground trying to stop someone going to the IPL who isn't in the Test team. I'm sure they care about Test cricket but picking someone purely to stop them going to the IPL isn't right is it!?

So we may as well do away with 4 day county cricket then?

Nobody cares, not even the players.

Buttler will have played no longer form cricket for months. How will he ever get back in?

The IPL ends in a couple of weeks, 4 day cricket ends at the end of September so apart from the four month window this summer I can never see him playing it ever again.

You have to question how much Buttler wants to get back into the test team, though. The case will have been made to him for him to become a white ball specialist and this will surely have needed his approval considering it will, as you say, make it harder for him to get back into the test team.

But, as PJ says, there's still plenty of time for him to play in the county championship given the IPL is nearly over. I think it may simply be a case of the ECB, conscious of needing to give more priority to limited overs cricket than they have done in the past following the nadir or the 2015 world cup, saying to Buttler, "you're obviously better at this version so concentrate on this".

If we are looking long term, Buttler is the best natural wicketkeeper since Chris Read and has the potential to be an excellent batsman in terms of hand eye coordination and 'time' in playing the ball. Like others before him he has at the moment a technical issue outside off stump in test cricket.

However long term surely it would be great for Bairstow to play as a batter and Buttler sorting his technique out and playing as keeper and batting at 7

Long term I'm sure that will happen.