England’s and India’s cricketers landed in Chennai on Tuesday before the final Test of the series, just 24 hours after the city was battered by Cyclone Vardah, the storm that has claimed a reported 18 lives and wreaked devastation across the south‑east coast of the country.
The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, which is hosting the fifth Test from Friday, has already said it expects the match to go ahead despite the power cuts and transport problems in the city caused by fallen trees. Both teams have been forced to cancel training on Wednesday as repairs are carried out at the Chepauk Stadium.
“The pitch and the outfield has not been affected by the cyclone. But the sightscreen has been damaged and bulbs have blown off [the floodlights],” the TNCA secretary, Kashi Viswanathan, said. “There have been hundreds of tree trunks lying in the road leading up to the stadium. Our challenge is to set everything in order. I am confident we will be able to.”
England are 3-0 down in the series, which comes after a disappointing 1-1 draw in Bangladesh, but the team’s head coach, Trevor Bayliss, has described the atmosphere in the squad as “upbeat” as they look to salvage some pride in what has been a gruelling pre-Christmas schedule.
Bayliss also issued his latest endorsement of Alastair Cook’s continuation as captain beyond the current series, describing questions on the subject as a “pain in the backside”. Cook, who has previously stated a desire to return to the playing ranks, will discuss the matter with Andrew Strauss, the director of England cricket, in the new year during their usual end-of-series debrief.
While defeat away against the world’s No1 side was not unexpected – and the causes going beyond Cook’s on-field tactics – the pair must decide if he remains the right man to lead the current side into the Ashes tour next winter or whether it would be better for him to concentrate on his batting, hand over to his vice-captain Joe Root, and empower a new generation of senior players such as Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow. Publicly at least, Bayliss’s preference is for the status quo. The head coach said: “Since I’ve been with the team – and it’s not a secret we’re looking to develop some new young players – the job [Cook has] done pulling all of that together has been pretty good.
“From my point of view, and I think every other person in the changing room, I would be surprised and disappointed if he wasn’t captain [next year]. If [Cook and Strauss] want to have a chat between themselves, a couple of old opening partners, I’m more than happy with that. Strauss has been a bit of a mentor to him over the years. I’m sure at some stage after that I will know the results of what they have chatted about.
“Out on the field, it would be easier if we had the five best batters in the world and the five best bowlers, but we’re going through a transition period with younger guys coming into the team and it’s difficult, away from home in foreign conditions, to be successful. When we aren’t, there are always these questions.”
Of the less experienced players in the side, Bayliss was keen to talk up Adil Rashid’s 22 wickets in the series, stating the leg-spinner had “gone up a level”, while enthusing about Ben Stokes’s all‑round performances and Jos Buttler’s return to the side as a specialist batsman.
The openers Haseeb Hameed and Keaton Jennings, who were also listed as pluses by the head coach, have been named in the England Lions tour of Sri Lanka in February, with Hameed expected to have recovered from a broken finger and Jennings named as captain.
The wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow, meanwhile, goes into the fifth Test needing 62 runs to pass Michael Vaughan’s England record of 1,481 runs in a calendar year. “That would be amazing but I can’t be thinking about 62 runs,” he said. “Having got an 89 already on this trip [in Mohali], and past 50 a couple of times, I want to try and get a hundred in this series. So if I achieve that objective and the record is a byproduct of that then fair enough, it’ll top off a fairly decent year.”
