Vic Marks's day one report
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That’s all from me. Tim and Adam Collins will be here for more tomorrow. Bye!
Having lost a wicket from the last ball before lunch, another from the last ball of the day, and their captain just before his century, India will feel they could have done better. They have still done very well, mind, established a solid foundation in this match, and if they bat through one full session tomorrow (or longer) their total will develop a genuinely daunting look. Given the cloud and the wind at the toss, England will have hoped for more.
Here’s Rashid on taking Kohli’s wicket:
I was trying to keep it nice and tight and mix my pace up. Fortunately for me that went a bit slower, in the driving range, and he just nicked it.
Simple, really.
And here’s Rahane on Rishabh Pant: “He’s been doing really well for India and in IPL. Right now he’s really confident and that’s what matters at the highest level. You don’t think too much about your skills, the more confident you are, the better.”
Here’s Ajinkya Rahane:
I think it’s a good score on this wicket. Unfortunately we lost Hardik in the last over, but we were looking to put pressure on the opponent. In the end it was a good score. It could have been better. 320-4 would have been really good. Intent was important on this wicket. Our openers played really well and we thought if we get a good score, the middle order could capitalise on that. Our focus was to rotate the strike as well as put bad balls to the boundary.
The more time I spend in the middle, I will get comfortable [facing Stokes]. Ben and I played together int he IPL as well. It’s all about playing one ball at a time and giving your best.
Intent was positive throughout. It was slightly slow, but after lunch I feel it was really good to bat on.
Sky switch straight to Surrey Stars v Western Storm in the Women’s Super League, so we might not get any player reaction from Trent Bridge.
STUMPS: India 307-6
And that’s your lot! The wicket was taken with the final ball of the over, and with a few minutes still to go until the 6.30pm cut-off, but there’ll be no more.
87th over: India 307-6 (Pant 18) Anderson bowls a lovely inswinging yorker. Hardik just about gets his bat down in time to survive it. But it turns out that was just softening him up: the next delivery moves away, takes the edge, and Buttler takes the catch at second slip.
WICKET! Hardik c Buttler b Anderson 18 (India 307-6)
Got him! Great bowling by Anderson, and this time he gets rewarded!
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86th over: India 307-5 (Hardik 18, Pant 18) Broad’s first delivery goes for four; his last hits an inside edge and flies into Pant’s back leg and then to safety. Still the breakthrough doesn’t come, and England are running out of time. There might be three overs left today, perhaps only two.
85th over: India 303-5 (Hardik 18, Pant 18) How the wickets aren’t tumbling here is a mystery. Anderson’s last two deliveries are crackers, but those wickets remain resolutely untumbled.
84th over: India 303-5 (Hardik 18, Pant 18) Oooh! That’s a lovely delivery from Broad, pitched full, moving away, forcing the batsman to play. Pant clips the next one through midwicket for four, but then Broad does him again with one that moves away. And again! Great over, unaccountably unrewarded.
83rd over: India 299-5 (Hardik 18, Pant 14) Hardik edges low and hard, and Jennings has no chance with this one. The ball flies past him on its way to the boundary.
82nd over: India 294-5 (Hardik 14, Pant 13) Hardik leaves the first three balls of Broad’s over but then nibbles at the fourth and gloves it gently to third slip, where Jennings dives to his right and unaccountably puts it down! It’s hard to see how he managed to drop it, and Broad is certainly at a loss. “How?” he screams. Dunno.
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81st over: India 294-5 (Hardik 14, Pant 13) The ground is bathed in late-afternoon sunlight as Anderson stands at the end of his run-up, fresh cherry in his hand. He bowls his first ball, but he doesn’t like the depth of the foothole he’s landing in, and after a chat with the umpire a couple of groundsmen are called on to deal with it, using a variety of novelty instruments. Eventually play resumes, but Pant is largely able to leave the new ball entirely alone.
80th over: India 292-5 (Hardik 14, Pant 11) A couple of singles off Rashid’s ninth over, and the new ball is now due. What’s more, it looks like England are going to take it.
79th over: India 290-5 (Hardik 13, Pant 10) Pant reins in his big-hitting instincts and eventually gets a single.
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78th over: India 288-5 (Hardik 12, Pant 9) Pant gets off the mark with a six! Kohli’s dismissal had been followed by seven dots, and just as an atmosphere of total calm appears to have set in, Rachid’s second delivery is smacked back over his head for a maximum! That’s a hell of a way to score your first Test runs.
77th over: India 279-5 (Hardik 12, Pant 0) That’s a maiden from Stokes. England will have a new ball available in three overs.
76th over: India 279-5 (Hardik 12, Pant 0) I failed to mention that Rashid had bowled the 74th over, the one in which Hardik wasn’t out. He hadn’t really looked very likely to make a breakthrough, but then suddenly there it was: a nicely flighted delivery, and a vitally important wicket.
WICKET! Kohli c Stokes b Rashid 97 (India 279-5)
Got him! Kohli edges and the ball flies straight into the hands of Stokes at slip!
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75th over: India 277-4 (Kohli 95, Hardik 12) Stokes has the opportunity with the ball to atone for his review-demanding, but he doesn’t immediately do so. Kohli moves on run closer to his ton.
74th over: India 276-4 (Kohli 94, Hardik 12) England are now clean out of reviews. That was a very strange one: there was no appeal, and literally only one person was at all interested. I trust that Stokes is suitably embarrassed about that, and that Root has learned to trust his instincts a little more in future.
Joe Root's got to be stronger than that. Not the first time he's been coerced into an appeal by his teammates. Nonsense review. #EngvInd
— Vithushan Ehantharajah (@Vitu_E) August 18, 2018
Not out!
The ball could hardly have been further from the bat. It flicked the pad on its way through. A useless waste of a review.
REVIEW! Is Hardik out here?
Nobody at all thinks so, except for Ben Stokes. He’s so convinced there was an edge it makes up for everyone else’s uncertainty, and Root eventually decides to review it.
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73rd over: India 272-4 (Kohli 94, Hardik 8) Stokes bowls, and Kohli scores a couple of twos. Or two couples. India’s captain is within sniffing distance of his century now. He has 22 Test centuries to his name, and has only once been dismissed in the 90s, in Johannesburg five years ago.
72nd over: India 268-4 (Kohli 90, Hardik 8) There’s some swing here for Anderson. There’s also a boundary for Hardik, pushed through the covers.
71st over: India 264-4 (Kohli 90, Hardik 4) Broad gets the ball to swing into the batsman, and then it swings right past the batsman, and past the wicketkeeper too, and it merrily swings all the way to the boundary. And the players will now enjoy some drinks.
70th over: India 254-4 (Kohli 84, Hardik 4) “I am obliged to point out that many have been written in languages other than English,” writes Sayak Mukherjee. “My favourite book ever is দিশি গান বিলিতি খেলা (Native music, Foreign Sport) by Kumarprasad Mukherji. Extraordinarily written and infinitely amusing, this is the book that has given me a lifelong love for both cricket writing and Indian classical music. If the cover does not make you want to learn Bengali and read it immediately, nothing will.”
69th over: India 253-4 (Kohli 83, Hardik 4) Hardik gets off the mark with a boundary, nicely times and place past mid-on. “I’d be interested to know if anyone else has a copy of Vic Marks’s The Ultimate One Day Cricket Match,” writes Charlie Miller. “Written in the mid-80s with Robin Drake, it’s a choose-your-own-adventure book where you are miraculously plucked from obscurity to become captain of an England team (of the Gower/Botham era) playing a one-dayer against a Rest of the World XI including Viv Richards, Allan Border, Malcolm Marshall etc. I picked it up in a small bookshop in the middle of Somerset in the mid-80s but have never ever come across anyone else who has ever heard of it.” Ah, choose your own adventure books. A profoundly bad idea, but they entertained me for a while in my childhood. I’ve also never heard of this one, sadly.
68th over: India 248-4 (Kohli 82, Hardik 0) Anderson immediately takes over from Woakes. Kohli’s momentum hasn’t stalled, though, and he hits a lovely shot through cover. “I would highly recommend Slipless In Settle,” says Ben Falkiner. Harry Pearson, once of this parish, is a brilliant writer always worth seeking out. It’s worth buying the book just for its title.
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67th over: India 241-4 (Kohli 75) You know things are going badly for England when Ben Stokes misfields. It only costs a run, but still. But then, from the final ball of the over, England’s luck changes. Rahane flashes his bat and the ball flies fast to Cook’s left. He probably expects Bairstow to go for it, but the keeper stands still and at the last second he flicks out a hand and it somehow sticks! On Sky, Ian Botham immediately declares it the finest catch of Cook’s career.
WICKET! Rahane c Cook b Broad 81 (India 241-4)
What a catch from Cook! What a grab that is!
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66th over: India 236-3 (Rahane 77, Kohli 74) Woakes bowls short to Rahane, who swings at it and flicks it away for four, and then Kohli pushes down the ground for four more, before finally Rahane flays past point for another boundary. That’s a 17-run over. “How about Penguins Stopped Play by Harry Thompson,” writes Eddie Simmons. “A wonderful story of an enthusiastic cricketer and his attempts to organise a team and play cricket on all seven continents. Funny, beautifully written and also one of the most moving books I’ve read in a long time.”
65th over: India 219-3 (Rahane 68, Kohli 66) “How has no-one mentioned Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams yet?” boggles Tim Myles, referring to this bit, as Kohli pulls the ball away for four:
“The game you know as cricket,” he said, and his voice still seemed to be wandering lost in subterranean passages, “is just one of those curious freaks of racial memory which can keep images in the mind aeons after their true significance has been lost in the midst of time. Of all the races in the Galaxy, only the English could possibly revive the memory of the most horrific wars ever to sunder the Universe and transform it into into what I’m afraid is generally regarded as an incomprehensibly dull and pointless game.
“Rather fond of it myself,” he added, “but in most people’s eyes you have been inadvertently guilty of the most grotesque bad taste. Particularly the bit about the little red ball hitting the wicket, that’s very nasty.”
64th over: India 214-3 (Rahane 68, Kohli 61) Woakes bowls. A couple of singles are scored.
63rd over: India 212-3 (Rahane 67, Kohli 60) This Broad over is a million times less dramatic than the last, with no wickets threatened and no insects ingested. A good diving stop on the rope keeps the scoring down to two.
62nd over: India 210-3 (Rahane 67, Kohli 58) Woakes bowls short and wide, and Rahane fair hammers it away for four. “Has no one suggested Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins?” writes Jeremy Beswick. “A must for all enthusiastic but incompetent cricketers like me. If it doesn’t make you laugh out loud you’ve no soul.”
61st over: India 206-3 (Rahane 63, Kohli 58) Oof! That’s a beautiful delivery from Broad, drawing Kohli forward, moving gently away, and leaving the batsman helpless as it flies just past the bat. And then another cracker! The final ball of the over jags away from Kohli, who is again lucky to get nothing on it. In between, Broad has to pull out of a delivery after, with the bowler haring along at full speed, a fly flies into his mouth. There’s some speculation that he was stung by a wasp, but he looks insufficiently pained to me.
60th over: India 206-3 (Rahane 63, Kohli 58) More bad luck/judgement for Anderson in the field, as he runs round to cut off a ball nudged wide of Jennings at third slip, slides, attempts to flick it back to Root, misses it and slides with it into the rope.
59th over: India 200-3 (Rahane 62, Kohli 53) India complete their second collective century, helped by Rahane edging the ball between slip fielders for four.
58th over: India 194-3 (Rahane 57, Kohli 52) Stokes’ first ball catches Kohli’s leading edge, but all that comes of it is a single. And then Rahane’s dropped! He absolutely cracks the ball to backward point, where Anderson jumps, gets both hands to it, pushes it into the air with his fingertips and watches it plop harmlessly to the turf. Given how fast the ball was moving it was a very difficult chance, but a chance it still was.
57th over: India 193-3 (Rahane 57, Kohli 51) The first ball of the session, bowled by Broad, is pushed past cover by Rahane for a fine four. “An outfield choice of cricket book from me: Shadows on the Grass by Simon Raven, the novelist and screenwriter,” suggests Chris Bourne. “This is a scabrous memoir of cricket matches at Charterhouse school, and various international grounds as his short army career (he was kicked out for unpaid debts at his bookie) tossed him around the fag end of empire. It opens with a homosexual dalliance in the scorebox at Charterhouse and includes a tale of the young Peter May urinating out of a train window as it passed through a station. Beautifully written and never a dull moment.”
Right then! A(nother) key session awaits. England had the better of the first, India enjoyed the second, and now the hosts need wickets or they will head to their hotel feeling all sorts of glum.
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56th over: India 189-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 53) Woakes continues, which means Root has paid him the ultimate compliment and given him as many overs as Anderson (15). He bowls one un-Andersonian ball, a bouncer, going down leg, which brings only four byes. And that’s tea, with India back on top, just about, thanks to their biggest and best stand of the series, an unbroken 107 between Kohli and Rahane. “It’s been disciplined and full of class,” says Isa Guha. England badly need a wicket on a day when only Chris Woakes has been incisive, and Anderson and Broad have had to settle for moral victories. Simon will be here after the break; I’ll see you in the morning. Thanks for your company and some entertaining correspondence.
55th over: India 184-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 52) Stokes peppers Rahane, who lets one bouncer hit him between the shoulder blades. Quite a vivid example of taking one for the team.
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54th over: India 183-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 51) Woakes too sends square leg off into the deep, but it’s a double bluff – he tries a yorker, which turns into a full toss, straight-driven for a single by Rahane. The script surely demands a twist before tea.
53rd over: India 182-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 50) Stokes comes on for a spot of bodyline, clearly signalled by a short leg and a deep square. One bouncer has Kohli flirting outside off, with a stroke that’s halfway from a nibble to a smash; another is called wide, which is an eccentric way to bring up the hundred partnership.
“Enough of this,” says Robert Wilson. “There is only one cricket book. The Pickwick Papers. Dickens may not have known much about the game but he recognised an opportunity for spoofing it loads when he saw one. This is Pickwick’s first meeting with a grifter, Mr Jingle. Is there any one of us who has not heard the same kind of shtick in some rained-off village 3rd XI game?
‘Played it! Think I have—thousands of times—not here—West Indies—exciting thing—hot work—very.’
‘It must be rather a warm pursuit in such a climate,’ observed Mr. Pickwick.
‘Warm!—red hot—scorching—glowing. Played a match once—single wicket—friend the colonel—Sir Thomas Blazo—who should get the greatest number of runs.—Won the toss—first innings—seven o’clock A.M.—six natives to look out—went in; kept in—heat intense—natives all fainted—taken away—fresh half-dozen ordered—fainted also—Blazo bowling—supported by two natives—couldn’t bowl me out—fainted too—cleared away the colonel—wouldn’t give in—faithful attendant—Quanko Samba—last man left—sun so hot, bat in blisters, ball scorched brown—five hundred and seventy runs—rather exhausted—Quanko mustered up last remaining strength—bowled me out—had a bath, and went out to dinner.’
‘And what became of what’s-his-name, Sir?’ inquired an old gentleman.
‘Blazo?’
‘No—the other gentleman.’
‘Quanko Samba?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Poor Quanko—never recovered it—bowled on, on my account—bowled off, on his own—died, sir.’”
That’s great. I had no idea that Dickens had invented the OBO.
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52nd over: India 181-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 50) A rare bad ball from Woakes, short and wide, gives Rahane a nice way to bring up his first fifty of the tour. He’s done very well after coming in in a semi-crisis, at 82-3, and having the whole lunch interval to think about his first ball.
51st over: India 177-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 46) Anderson to Kohli: no alarms, but a maiden, which is (a) quite a feat when Kohli is well set, and (b) the zillionth of Anderson’s career.
And here’s an unusual email from David Hooper. “Hi Tim – ref your request today for cricket memories from the older listeners... I was an Essex schoolboy in 1948 when the Australian cricket team arrived. It was to be Bradman’s last tour. I had missed it, but most of my school friends had seen the famous match versus Essex when the Australians had scored 721 in one day – albeit on a ground at Southend with a very short boundary. However, I caught up with the tour when Australia played at Lords versus - I thought the MCC – but the records show that it was the ‘Gentlemen of England!’, effectively the regular England X1.
“I can recall very little of the cricket, apart from seeing at the nets a gnarled oldish bowler, who I now know was Doug Ring. I watched from The Mound, then uncovered but free, and recommended by a couple of old codgers I had met in the queue outside the ground.Mid-afternoon, all play was abandoned because of rain, and the Old Codgers invited me to watch the Real Tennis for a while. I had never heard of this sport. Later I realized that they were a pair of gate-crashers who had been entering the Members Only door to the Real Tennis courts for many years without understanding either the rules or the score system! That tennis episode has stuck in my memory.” Love those codgers. They must have been born around the time Test cricket began.
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50th over: India 177-3 (Kohli 51, Rahane 46) Root has lost faith in Rashid, not that he had very much in the first place. Woakes returns, and his first ball is propped down to third man by Kohli, who goes to yet another fifty. He’s recovered from the injury and insult of Lord’s, and is surely eyeing a big hundred.
“Just emailing in on my day off,” says my colleague Tom Davies, “to add that Simon Lister’s Fire in Babylon book - developing the story covered in the film of the great West Indies teams of the 70s and 80s - is a compelling, thorough and pretty unputdownable account of one of the most interesting chapters in all sport, indeed all life.”
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49th over: India 174-3 (Kohli 49, Rahane 45) Anderson drops about three inches short and Rahane seizes on it, dancing back to play a classy steer for four through backward point.
Sean Clayton joins the literary fray. “Beyond a Boundary is worth reading,” he reckons, “but I learned more from it about Caribbean culture and its 20th history than about cricket. My two favourite books about cricket, from rather different angles, are Mike Brearley’s ‘The Art Of Captaincy’ and ‘The Art Of Coarse Cricket’ by Spike Hughes, which is more a celebration of drunken village/casual cricketing.” Not that drink and top-class cricket are total strangers, as we saw in the Stokes case.
48th over: India 170-3 (Kohli 49, Rahane 41) Rashid regresses with an awful ball, a half-tracker, missing leg, which Kohli whips round to the fine-leg boundary. Root responds by taking out short leg, and the over goes for eight. “He’s got to have the courage to bowl at his speed,” Rob Key argues. “Not rush it.”
47th over: India 162-3 (Kohli 42, Rahane 40) Kohli clips a single off the first ball from Anderson, leaving Rahane to face the dots.
“I suppose it depends what you want from a cricketing book,” says Peter Rowntree. Can’t argue with that. “Undoubtedly the best-written cricket book ever written was A.G. McDonnell’s England, Their England. Which in terms of prose was the only cricketing book that I know that got onto the UK’s education reading list as recommended for A-level students. It has an account of a village cricket match, played down in Kent, which is considered a classic. The book covers a lot more than cricket, and if you enjoy a good laugh it is not only wonderfully written, but an extremely humorous account of British life in the 1930s.”
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46th over: India 161-3 (Kohli 41, Rahane 40) Again, a single and two from Rashid’s over. He has 4-0-21-0 and is warming to the task, trying a googly or two.
“Two spring to mind,” says Andrew Thomas, talking about books. “Test Cricket by Tony Greig, which is a right riveting read.” My idea of heaven in 1975. “And The Thoughts of Trueman Now, by Fred Trueman, Eric Morecambe and Willie Rushton. An absolute delight including phrases such as ‘the thwack of leather on Brian Close’s head’ accompanied by an excellent Rushton cartoon of our Brian’s bald pate covered in round bruises.”
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45th over: India 158-3 (Kohli 40, Rahane 38) A maiden from Anderson to Rahane, with no dramas.
“Recommended cricket books,” says John Starbuck, sounding businesslike. “Six books because six balls in an over (this list excludes fiction which is another matter entirely): Mike Brearley - Phoenix from the Ashes; Duncan Hamilton - Harold Larwood; The Guardian OBO - Is it cowardly to pray for rain?; Jonathan Agnew - Cricket: a modern anthology; Gideon Haigh - The Ultimate Test (2009 Ashes); The Guardian OBO - 766 and all that.” Some fine deliveries there. Not sure about the last one though.
44th over: India 158-3 (Kohli 40, Rahane 38) Rashid continues inching towards some rhythm, conceding three this time. No turn as yet.
43rd over: India 155-3 (Kohli 38, Rahane 37) Another fine duel we’ve got Anderson and Kohli into. Anderson stifles an appeal for lbw, because there’s an inside edge. Kohli glides a four past point. Anderson has a full-throated appeal, but gets no change.
“I’d have to think hard about the best cricket book I’ve read,” says Boris Starling. ”But there’s no doubt about the worst: TESTKILL by Ted Dexter. It’s a murder mystery in which an Australian pace bowler is killed during the first day of a Lord’s Test match. One reviewer (sadly not named Malcolm Devon) got it pretty much spot-on when he said ‘the story staggers, stumbles, stutters and is stifled. Ultimately, when the methods and motive of murder are revealed, they are shocking only because they are intolerably insipid and unfair to the reader….. [though the book] perhaps compensates somewhat through rather detailed descriptions of lesbian love-making. Yes, it does boggle the imagination to think of Dexter writing the same.’”
42nd over: India 151-3 (Kohli 34, Rahane 37) Rashid manages a dot, to Kohli, but then goes for 1-2-2, with little flight and every stroke going out to the sweepers on the square boundaries. Then two dots, drawing Rahane forward, so that’s better.
Afternoon everyone and thanks Simon. So India have bounced back and won the third hour, but they remain just a minor collapse away from a calamity. Chris Woakes has three for 32, while the rest of England’s attack have none for 102. Time for Adil Rashid to bowl a better second over.
41st over: India 146-3 (Kohli 33, Rahane 33) Encouragement for both sides here, with Rahane hitting Anderson’s first ball to the square leg boundary before being befuddled by the second. “I can confirm to Andrew Benton that Beyond the Boundary is the best book about cricket ever written,” writes Robin Durie. “James’s adage – what do they know of cricket, that only cricket know – is a perfect epigram for this great book.” The players will take drinks, and I’ll hand back over to Tim, who will take us through to tea.
40th over: India 140-3 (Kohli 33, Rahane 27) Rashid does his first bowling for a while, and Kohli licks his lips and tucks in, with one particularly rank delivery dispatched to the fine leg boundary, the first of two in the over.
39th over: India 130-3 (Kohli 23, Rahane 27) A maiden from Anderson. I’ve never read the best-selling sequel, Great Batsmen: Their Methods at a Glance. George Beldam took some groundbreaking photos to go in both books, including the famous shot of Victor Trumper about which Gideon Haigh wrote a book of his own.
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38th over: India 130-3 (Kohli 18, Rahane 21) The sun has come out since lunch, and England haven’t had a lot of encouragement. Boundaries off the first and final balls of Stokes’ over, Kohli whipping the last beautifully through midwicket. Anyway, books: I spent a very happy couple of days once with CB Fry’s Great Bowlers and Fielders: Their Methods at a Glance. I’m an absolute sucker for good sports writing from that era (it was published in 1906).
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37th over: India 119-3 (Kohli 18, Rahane 21) Anderson is back, and Rahane pushes the ball past cover, forcing Root into a lengthy sprint to keep the scoring to three. “I’ve just read in a second-hand anthology a review of Beyond a Boundary, by CLR James. Says its the best book on cricket ever,” writes Andrew Benton. “Would you recommend it, and what others? Need some context to complement the OBO and TMS.” It’s been on my reading list forever but without ever actually being read. My favourite cricket book is much older than that one. With any luck I’ll be able to tell you what it is in the next over, but I’m open to other suggestions.
36th over: India 114-3 (Kohli 16, Rahane 18) Stokes returns, and Rahane deliberately angles the ball just wide of Jennings at third slip and away for four.
35th over: India 109-3 (Kohli 16, Rahane 13) Shot! A splendid cover drive from Kohli starts the over with a boundary. And that’s the only scoring of Woakes’ over, after which we do have a bowling change.
34th over: India 105-3 (Kohli 12, Rahane 13) A maiden over from Broad to Rahane, entirely without drama. Anderson must surely be limbering up.
33rd over: India 105-3 (Kohli 12, Rahane 13) Woakes continues, and India move to triple figures with a leg bye. That brings Rahane onto strike, where he tries to work the ball to midwicket, the ball straightens, and it flies off the leading edge and to the backward point boundary. The over ends with an lbw shout against Kohli, but the ball would surely have cleared the stumps had it not hit his back leg.
32nd over: India 99-3 (Kohli 12, Rahane 9) There’s a break in the middle of the over while a helmet is brought on and handed to Jennings, who pulls it on and moves forward to stand at third slip, a few yards ahead of the rest of the cordon. He is not called into action.
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31st over: India 98-3 (Kohli 11, Rahane 9) The run of dots and twos is eventually broken by Rahane, who times a defensive shot so well that the ball skips past mid-off and all the way to the rope. Then he hits to midwicket, where Anderson’s hapless misfield gifts India three bonus runs.
30th over: India 90-3 (Kohli 10, Rahane 2) Kohli drives the ball to point, where with the ball bouncing awkwardly Stokes performs an excellent diving stop. The next ball goes in a very similar direction but just wide of the fielder this time for a couple of runs. Since lunch there have been four twos and 22 dots.
29th over: India 86-3 (Kohli 6, Rahane 2) Rahane gets off the mark, working the ball through square leg for a couple.
28th over: India 84-3 (Kohli 6, Rahane 0) A snorter of a delivery from Broad straightens and flies just past the bat, the highlight of a fine over. “I can see why they wanted to get Stokes back into the team, but I still think the variety offered by Curran was vital,” suggests Tom. “A bit like making goulash: Stokes is like a piece of prime beef, as are Broad, Anderson and Woakes. But Curran offered something different and made the recipe complete, he was the paprika. We’ve made a paprika-less goulash with an excess of beef!!! Very filling but not a balanced recipe and likely to lead to constipation and bloating. I suppose Rashid is the parsley in this slightly tenuous analogy – not really needed yet but has the potential to tie the meal together or just be an attractive garnish.”
27th over: India 82-3 (Kohli 4, Rahane 0) Woakes last two deliveries pass without incident. A wicket and a meal but no runs in that over.
Hello! So, that was a pleasing/distressing lunchtime gift from Pujara, leaving the match pleasantly and dramatically poised. The players are back out, and Kohli’s contribution to the innings is going to be key. Let’s play.
Mid-27th over: India 82-3 (Kohli 4) And that’s lunch, with England winning the second hour even more convincingly than India won the first. Woakes has three for 18, to make seven for 61 in 22.4 overs in this series. Those figures aren’t good, they’re ridiculous. He’s done exactly what Curran did in the first Test, conjuring a collapse from a solid opening partnership. Once again, Kohli will have to play a lone hand – though Pant could be an exciting partner for him. I’m taking a break, and Simon Burnton will be with you shortly.
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Wicket! Pujara c Rashid b Woakes 14 (India 82-3)
Woakes has the golden touch this week. He tries a short ball, and Pujara hooks it to Rashid, who takes a crisp catch. RASHID! On the scorecard. Plus, the not-very-fine leg turns out to be a masterstroke.
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26th over: India 82-2 (Pujara 14, Kohli 4) Kohli, tied down, swats at a wide one from Broad, which, two minutes before lunch, looks like risk without reward – he only just reaches it and it goes to point.
“Stokes will be/is trying too hard,” says Ant White. “S. Curran would simply be enjoying the challenge.
Are C.W. and S.C. the J.A./S.B. replacements? If so, who will play the bad cop? I’ll go for Sam!”
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Not out!
Good ball, bad review – Kohli was outside the line and playing a shot.
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Review! For lbw against Kohli
Not given. It’s Broad, so probably not out...
25th over: India 82-2 (Pujara 14, Kohli 4) Kohli plays his first attacking shot, a wristy clip for three off Woakes.
“Had I known about Kim Thonger’s ECB game,” says Paul Callinan, “my sojourn in Vienna airport late last night, at the mercy of my endearingly badly-behaved children, would have been slightly more bearable. How about Embarrassingly Cack-handed Blunderers (or Bell-ends, if this wasn’t a family newspaper).”
“So following Kim’s rules,” says Peter Rowntree, “you could have things like Extremely Cunning Beggars. You do have to choose your words carefully though, or you might get banned for contravening community rules.” Indeed. But I think we can run to bell-ends. It’s a liberal newspaper, after all.
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24th over: India 79-2 (Pujara 14, Kohli 1) So it’s Broad to Kohli, and Root brings in a short leg for the first time today, to remind the great man how he got out at Lord’s. Kohli, standing outside his ground as usual, plays and misses at his first ball, but gets a single with an angled prod to short leg’s right. Broad then beats Pujara with a ball that’s far too good to take a wicket – a super-inswinger that eludes the inside edge and whistles over middle.
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23rd over: India 76-2 (Pujara 12, Kohli 0) Woakes keeps probing, but Pujara can take it – another cover push, for four this time. Broad is coming on.
“At the risk of betraying my age,” says Brian Withington, I still rather like the Thursday starts of yore (but without the horrendously stultifying Sunday rest day). Opening exchanges on days 1 and 2, with the Saturday, in golfing parlance, moving day, providing the transformative action before a satisfying denouement on Sunday afternoon. Stands the clock at ten to three, and is there honey still for tea?”
22nd over: India 72-2 (Pujara 8, Kohli 0) Stokes concedes four byes and three off the bat from Pujara, who pushes purposefully into the covers. Is he protecting Kohli from the strike? The lunchwatchman.
Rashid’s over before lunch is now under threat, as Root must be tempted to give Anderson or Broad a go at Kohli.
21st over: India 65-2 (Pujara 5, Kohli 0) Woakes has changed the game here. In home Tests, he’s world-class.
Wicket! Rahul lbw b Woakes 23 (India 65-2)
Yes, smacking into leg stump. Woakes went wide on the crease and angled it in. A shame for Rahul, who, like Dhawan, played with some steel.
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Review! Rahul given lbw
Woakes again, looks out...
20th over: India 65-1 (Rahul 23, Pujara 5) Stokes thinks he’s got Pujara lbw, but a late inside edge brings him four. Again the not-very-fine leg costs a few runs – hard to fathom the thinking there. Stokes has bowled better than his figures (6-0-26-0), and he fancies his chances against Pujara.
19th over: India 61-1 (Rahul 23, Pujara 1) Pujara is off the mark with a push on the off side. Dhawan was squared up by Woakes, who now has five for 54 in this series, and a wicket every 23 balls.
Wicket! Dhawan c Buttler b Woakes 35 (India 60-1)
The breakthrough! Perfect line and length from Woakes, wobble seam, outside edge, and Buttler, unlike at Lord’s, holds the first chance that comes his way.
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18th over: India 60-0 (Dhawan 35, Rahul 23) Rahul forgets everything he’s learnt this morning and plays a right old waft at Stokes, which flies over the slips. Stokes finds a good retort, bowling a booming inswinger, which nonetheless beats the outside edge.
Gary Naylor has a bone to pick with Gary Foskett (12th over). “Jos Buttler, though his red-ball record isn’t good, is there for the one or two Gilchristian innings that change a series. So you have to suffer the 20s in exchange for the odd 90 off 65 balls. Whether to pick him at all is a question, but he can’t be dropped just now.” Agreed.
17th over: India 56-0 (Dhawan 35, Rahul 19) Woakes overpitches and Rahul plays a textbook cover-drive. Then he gets a bit lucky, edging for four, though he played it late, as ever, and got his head over it. And that’s the 50 partnership, India’s first since their first of the series, way back on August 2, when they were still on top of the world.
At this rate, Adil Rashid is not going to be the invisible man again. He may even get more than the token over before lunch.
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16th over: India 47-0 (Dhawan 35, Rahul 10) Stokes finds the shoulder of Shawn’s bat, but the edge dies before it reaches third slip. This could turn out to be a very slow pitch. When Stokes got short and wide again, Dhawan cuts him for four. His 35 has come off only 59 balls.
“Morning Tim.” Morning, Kim Thonger. “We’ve invented a new airport departure lounge game, but think it’s also suitable for lunch and tea intervals. We call it the ECB game.
“The rules. E must be an adverb, such as excruciatingly . C must be an adjective, for example complacent. B must be a noun, like buffoons. Got it? Best and funniest one wins. Loser buys drinks/food/etc.” Ha.
15th over: India 43-0 (Dhawan 31, Rahul 10) Woakes duly appears and beats both batsmen – a beauty to Dhawan, holding its line, and a ball that keeps low to Rahul, going under his attempted cut. And that’s drinks, with India on top, which is just what the neutral ordered. The openers have been calm, purposeful and positive.
“As someone who is severely deaf,” says John Starbuck, “I know the problems of mishearing words. It’s footholes, not footholds [12th over] – which, anyway, doesn’t make sense.” It’s a fair cop.
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14th over: India 42-0 (Dhawan 30, Rahul 10) Stokes is getting some swing, but it’s not late, and both batsmen have their eye in.
“On the topic of leg-byes,” says Tapan Pandya. “During college heydays – 2003 World Cup, I guess – Sachin glanced a spinner and ran three. They were called leg-byes…. n I sighed in front of all of us wild hostel mates ‘what if Sachin misses century now by three?’ N guess what…… I was banned/cursed from predicting/watching Indian matches ‘ever after’! My memory said it was a SL bowler - and I just checked……indeed it was.” Wild Hostel Mates, eh. Hope you formed a band.
13th over: India 41-0 (Dhawan 29, Rahul 10) Anderson continues, keeping Rahul honest but offering, by Anderson standards, little threat. Get Woakes on!
12th over: India 41-0 (Dhawan 29, Rahul 10) Stokes drops short and wide again, and it comes off the pitch so slowly that Dhawan’s cut for four goes in front of square this time. “It’s not really green,” says Kumar Sangakkara, who is shaping as an incisive commentator. “The greenness is right up in the bowlers’ footholds.”
A tweet from Gary Foskett, aka Clapton Blues. “Swann called it right @bbctms: ‘Buttler is currently not worth his place, Curran is worth his weight in gold.’ You could also make a case for a fourth all-rounder – Moeen Ali in for Adil Rashid.”
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11th over: India 35-0 (Dhawan 24, Rahul 9) Another single for Dhawan, who is playing Anderson late and well. Time for Sam Curr – oh.
A view on leg byes from Pramith Pillai. “If eliminating leg byes by verifying runs via Hotspot/Snicko is such a drag [6th over], then cricket should stop wasting time verifying boundaries, short runs and anything else that slows the game down for the sake of verification. I totally agree with Dave. Leg byes are an abomination and do not hold a place in Test cricket any more.” Sorry to be less than clear – I meant that leg byes were a drag, not the verification process (though it might be).
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10th over: India 34-0 (Dhawan 23, Rahul 9) Root makes his first bowling change, and it’s not Chris Woakes, the Man of the Match at Lord’s: it’s Ben Stokes, the prodigal son, who draws a few cheers and no boos from the Sam Curran Preservation Society. Stokes opens with two long hops. Rahul shovel-pulls his for a single; Dhawan cracks his past cover, the shot of the day so far.
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9th over: India 26-0 (Dhawan 18, Rahul 7) Just a single for Rahul off Anderson, and India have won the first half-hour.
“Morning.” Morning, Mr Starbuck. “One thing about byes and leg-byes is that, if it’s one bowler conceding most of them, especially in a tight run-chase, the skipper is likely to take him off and bring on someone with better control. Extras mean a lot in the context of the whole match.” Can do, yes, but not often at the top level?
8th over: India 25-0 (Dhawan 18, Rahul 6) England’s fine leg isn’t fine at all, for reasons that are mysterious. It costs six more runs as Dhawan leg-glances Broad, twice, for four. Dhawan’s inside edge is a lot better than his outside edge.
7th over: India 17-0 (Dhawan 10, Rahul 6) Anderson bowls a maiden to Rahul, but it’s misleading: two deliveries are so wide that they wouldn’t hit a seventh stump. He makes up for it with a near-perfect last ball, which Rahul may have had a nibble at.
Any views on Saturday starts, then? Especially if you have a nine-to-five job and normally miss the first day. Spoiler: once the excitement has worn off – around the age of 15 – the first day can be the dullest. But then this series hasn’t had any dull days.
6th over: India 17-0 (Dhawan 10, Rahul 6) Rahul joins in the run-fest, getting right forward to meet a blameless ball from Broad with a well-timed push for four. To celebrate, Rahul takes a quick single.
Dave Pople has a theory. “I wonder if leg-byes exist because it is hard to tell if bat hit ball with the naked eye, so the runs count either way and the umpire just decides how they are recorded. i.e. not so vital as a wicket-taking decision, so just an afterthought. With Snicko and Hotspot, they could in theory be done away with – would slow the game down though.” Some truth in that, but they’re still a drag, aren’t they?
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5th over: India 12-0 (Dhawan 10, Rahul 1) Anderson gives Rahul one off the mark, nudged to leg, then beats Dhawan. Just when you’re thinking he’s found his groove, he strays to leg again and gets glanced by Dhawan for the first four of the match. Then there’s an edge, but Dhawan flashes high, if not hard, and the ball sails over Pope at fourth slip.
4th over: India 3-0 (Dhawan 2, Rahul 0) Broad, getting a first glimpse of Dhawan, goes round the wicket, and produces another peach, angled in and shaping away. Then he beats the inside edge. For someone who opened the batting at school, Broad’s been a wonderful bowler. And a maddening batsman, so breezy and entertaining early on, just another tail-ender now.
3rd over: India 3-0 (Dhawan 2, Rahul 0) Ever the miser, Anderson concedes only a leg bye. Leg byes are odd, aren’t they? A reward, by definition, for missing the ball.
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2nd over: India 2-0 (Dhawan 2, Rahul 0) The first jaffa of the day is dished up by Stuart Broad, who sends a classic out-seamer past KL Rahul’s outside edge.
The plea for a TMS link is answered by S Ashwin. “Should’ve sent this in earlier but was busy finishing my breakfast. Here is the link.” Thanks, S. Any relation of R?
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1st over: India 2-0 (Dhawan 2, Rahul 0) Jimmy Anderson has the ball, and Joe Root has given him four slips, with Pope at fourth, not Stokes, who is prowling at backward point. The first ball is an inswinger to the left-handed Shikhar Dhawan, who plays a solid back-foot block. Second ball, similar but on middle-and-leg, he tucks for two. The rest he can leave, as Anderson’s radar suffers a rare glitch. Well played Dhawan.
“Real potential, as the ball gets older, for reverse swing,” David Lloyd notes. “It’s a rough square.”
“I feel Sam Curran has been very unlucky,” says Dave Brown. “I know the merits of Stokes but I’m not sure I would have changed the side from the last Test.”
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A spot of crowd-sourcing
Jonathan emails to ask for the link for listening to Test Match Special overseas. Not for the first time, I fail to find it with a search – can anyone help?
The first pun of the day comes from Mark Hooper. “May I be the 325th to say: Yo! Bumrah the show!”
And the first tweet is from Gav Squires, recommending this recap of India’s Tests at Trent Bridge, written by, of all people, Gav Squires.
“Bat ugly!” says Mike Atherton, who knows a bit about that.
Teams
England make just the one change to a winning team, Stokes for Curran. India make three changes – Bumrah for Kuldeep as expected, Dhawan for Vijay at the top of the order, and, most interestingly, a new keeper, Rishabh Pant for Dinesh Karthik. Pant is a serious talent, only 20, with a first-class average of 54 and a triple hundred on his CV already. He’s Ollie Pope with a bit more experience, but he might have preferred not to make his Test debut against Jimmy Anderson at Trent Bridge.
India Dhawan, Rahul, Pujara, Kohli (c), Rahane, Pandya, Pant (w), Ashwin, Shami, Sharma, Bumrah.
England Cook, Jennings, Root (c), Pope, Bairstow (w), Stokes, Buttler, Woakes, Rashid, Broad, Anderson.
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Toss: England opt to bowl
Joe Root wins the toss and takes first use of that juicy pitch. Viral Kohli says he would have batted anyway.
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Someone call security
Sam Curran’s been robbed. His place in the XI has gone to Ben Stokes. Yes, Stokes wrapped up the first Test with one of his hot spells – but he only had the chance because Curran had dragged England back into the match, twice, first with the ball and then with the bat. And he’s 20!
Joe Root had a tricky decision to make, and it’s understandable that he opted for Stokes’s presence, multitasking and (ahem) aggression. But the lesser of the evils would surely have been to leave out Adil Rashid. The few overs of spin that England are likely to need could have been supplied by Root himself. Five seamers may sound samey, but Curran, with his angle and low trajectory, adds more variety than an unused leg-spinner. As it is, England are back to four right-armers.
India, who bowled well at Edgbaston and poorly at Lord’s, are expected to bring in Jasprit Bumrah, whose first Test wicket was AB de Villiers, clean bowled.
Preamble
Morning everyone and welcome to something very few cricket lovers have experienced before – a Test in England starting on a Saturday. The last time this happened was in 1955. It reminds me of that line of Leonard Cohen’s - “I haven’t been this happy since the end of World War Two”. Not even the OBO team’s collective memory goes back that far – if yours does, or you have a grandparent on hand to help out, do get in touch.
For England fans, it’s make-your-mind-up time. Do you support them so fervently that you want to see them win this series in three games flat, after being down-and-out on the third day? Or would you rather go back to where we were in the first Test, and have some drama?
Cricket badly needs an Indian win. Or, failing that, a match that goes the distance. The Trent Bridge pitch, which has a green tinge, may not be in the mood to deliver.
