When strolling down to Edgbaston from the leafy boho suburb of Moseley one passes the adjoining Colts Ground and on the morning of a Test match the batsmen on both sides can be viewed through the chain link fence netting away studiously.
Before the third instalment of this fluctuating series opener in Birmingham, England’s early session became a scene of panic when the team’s physio, Craig de Weymarn, was felled by a ball that had flown flush off the bat of Ben Stokes and into his jaw.
Alastair Cook was then seen hurtling around the ground to alert the team doctor and in no time at all the popular physio was packed off to hospital for x-rays and later surgery, with a pretty grim day for a number of the batsmen having got off to what was a pretty grim start.
Moments before this frenzied incident everything was as tranquil as Cannon Hill Park across the road. Dawid Malan was sitting on the grass awaiting his turn to warm up, staring into the middle distance. These are the calm-before-the-storm moments where you wonder what is exactly on a sportsman’s mind.
Were they thoughts about the challenge ahead? Lingering regrets over the two lives given to Virat Kohli the day before?
Either way, Malan was gearing up for a pretty important day on a personal level. Memories of a maiden Test century in Perth, amid what was hoped to be a breakthrough Ashes series, have been fading of late and with the batsman many view to be next in line – Worcestershire’s Joe Clarke – training with the squad this week, and those drops at second slip hurting his stock further, a score was very much in order.
Instead the Middlesex left-hander found himself the first of five victims for Ishant Sharma – squared up on 20 by a ball that moved away a touch and flew off the edge to gully – and is now left hoping that the absence of Stokes for the Lord’s Test persuades the selection panel that too much change elsewhere would be disruptive.
Getting another right-hander such as Clarke into the lineup, given the threat of Ravi Ashwin, may be a factor and yet Malan played the off-spinner better than some. Instead it was Sharma who left his average at No 4 a troubling 11.8 from six digs, while a third drop at slip in India’s fourth-innings chase, when the 30-year-old shelled Murali Vijay on one, will not have Jimmy Anderson pushing for his retention.
Sharma was deeply impressive here, with three victims in an over – interrupted by lunch – accounting for Jonny Bairstow, Stokes and Jos Buttler, all caught between keeper and third slip. When he sent Stuart Broad on his way with another snick behind, it was his eighth five-wicket haul from 83 Tests and his seventh to have come outside India.
The 29-year-old is offering a significantly different threat to that of four years ago when he bounced out England’s happy hookers at Lord’s. His early season spell with Jason Gillespie at Sussex has been spent grooving a fuller length with the Dukes ball and maximising the natural shape he gets into the right-handers and away from the lefties.
He has been working on the ball that holds its line too. Whereas previously he used a scrambled seam for this, wrist adjustments now see him keep it upright and with this comes greater doubt for the batsmen.
Had Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar been fit for this Test match, Sharma may well have been the one to miss out. But when the pair return you fancy the 6ft 3in seamer, who is clearly enjoying English conditions, will not be the one to make way – a good selection problem to have compared with that currently vexing the home side.
