Posted by England v India. Five Tests. Man alive, there’s scope for some stuff here. We’re only stopping at five with this article because if we send the email any later, you’ll all end up paying attention to THE WRONG THINGS and we’d never forgive ourself.
Rishabh Pant v Shoaib Bashir
In truth, this is more Every India Batter v Shoaib Bashir. We’ve singled out Pant though because… you know… Rishabh Pant. If he doesn’t have a go in the first Test, history suggests he’ll have warmed up sufficiently by the fifth.
A young spinner who can’t even get a game in county cricket wouldn’t ordinarily be enraptured by the prospect of bowling to Pant et al, but who honestly knows what’s going on with Shoaib Bashir’s career? This might play into his giant hands. Perhaps he’ll emerge as England’s cow-cornered tiger.
Ben Stokes’ bowling
The body’s never been better he’ll maintain, right up to – and probably beyond – his next physical derailment.
Ollie Pope’s hair
Where’s it heading? Is he going to go Full Lloyd?
Brydon Carse with the new ball
England’s appetite for bowlers who can perform well with the old ball means that they’ve managed to pick a side with only one clear new ball bowler for the first Test. After years of square-pegging at first-change, Chris Woakes now finally finds himself opening and yet he’ll do so with a round peg partner in the form of Brydon Carse, who’s barely ever done the job.
This is slightly bizarre in that the ‘new ball in English conditions’ queue is pretty much always the England team’s longest. It does however tally with Ben Stokes’ previous comments about favouring versatile bowlers who can implement all sorts of different strategies. Speaking after Josh Tongue’s debut in 2023, he complimented him on this quality, saying it was a way for him to get “different types of spells out of one bowler.”
Jasprit Bumrah just generally
Speaking of adaptable bowlers, real, out-and-out, class-above quicks don’t come around too often. And even when they do come around, they quite often only plan on playing three out of five Tests due to workload management.
The reigning Lord Megachief of Gold is in the country and provided his back doesn’t give in, you can count on him doing incredible things. Not many players have ever carried such a guarantee. Enjoy it while you can.
Stuart Broad has just said the first hour will be crucial.
Huge if true.
50 minutes in, it’s proven kind of indeterminate.
No-one ever warns you it’ll be that.
Crucial session coming up though.
I’ll put a shot of whiskey in the post lunch coffee if they say it on commentary.
How do I change the image on my name? Is that grabbing it from my gmail account? That was my profile pic about 10 years ago.
(sorry to fill the comments with rubbish)
Think it comes from Gravatar – which may well be linked to your Google account.
Indeed it does. Thanks KC.
Now… back to the painful cricket.
Can we get Nasser to interview Stokes about his decision to bowl first?
I went to Headingley yesterday but had to leave before getting a chance to read this. Sorry everyone, I was thinking about the wrong things (eg Scampi and Lemon fries, why Leeds, a city with excellent brewing heritage and the home of some great beer, has such a worse beer offering at its’ cricket ground than Manchester, and whether any of us had previously seen 5 penalty runs for a ball hitting the wicketkeeper’s gear at a game we’d been at)
I can only apologise for the obvious impact this had on England’s bowling.
Hope you survived the sunshine unscathed AP.
Don’t tell me they’re still pouring only Tetley’s there like when I last visiting in 1999.
I remember by Dad telling me about the helmet rule. He used to umpire locally on Sundays and loved an obscure rule, but I’ve never seen it in real life
Tetleys £6.80, Brooklyn Lager £7.30, Hobgoblin ‘Session IPA’ (3.4% abv) £7.30, Guinness £7.30. Various ciders and lagers also available but I didn’t see the prices.
Mercifully the organisers realised by tea that the incredibly slow trickle of water at the refill stations was insufficient so dished out cold bottles of Harrogate Spring to anyone who wanted one.
*Guinness £7.70 – people were paying it as well
Was there also a £1 deposit on the glass?
£8.70 was last year’s peak price, at The Oval. We might be updating our top Patreon tier before the summer’s out.
No deposit but the glasses did contain a warning to recycle them ‘before they self-destruct’.
At some point, someone (probably in London, probably at an ‘event’) is going to ask me for £10 for a pint of beer and I’m not sure how I am going to be able to cope with that.
So when was the last time three hundreds and three ducks in one innings scored.
I why does my avatar look like a toilet with an exposed brain. I feel belittled.
Correction: Should read “…and why does my avatar, etc.”
Big session this
That’s one wotsit of a collapse considering what went before 430 for 3 then 41 for 7.
Ollie Pope’s three-figure hair!
In the words of Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman:
Big first hour tomorrow. Big. Huge.
IN MY DAY, (collective yawn, but stay with me), I remember taking beer into big man cricket in industrial quantities.
I can just about remember being able to do the same, SCD, but sadly the ICC Powers That Be put a stop to it around the time of the 2005 Ashes, if I recall correctly. Lord’s was allowed to be an exception because the MCC members complained so bitterly about the horrifying prospect being unable to bring in the correct sparkling wine to pair with their picnic (Hence the ‘Lord’s, home of corks’ situation that has been well documented on this website).
According to Michael Vaughan it’s a different game when Bumrah is bowling. Seems unfairly confusing to the players?
Did he say what game? Baseball? Scrabble? XCOM: Enemy Unknown?
He didn’t. I’m not sure he knows. Scrabble would be good though. “Another beauty from Bumrah, landing it right on a triple word score.”
Vaughan just said ‘Ben Stokes makes things happen.’
Either these pundits don’t read this website, or they do and they’re having a right good laugh.
We heard that a couple of times today and it felt like the return of an old friend. A boring, annoying old friend who always says the same things, but an old friend nonetheless.
Atherton showed some self awareness at the start of play this morning “a pivotal session coming up”
Then he laughed and said we always say this about Test cricket but then doubled down to emphasise that this time we really mean it.
Big session tomorrow morning, right folks?!
Now Phil Tuffnell has said that the first hour will be crucial.
Anyone got bingo yet?
Middlesex just appointed a Danish coach
Their first session will be big!