The final Test of the summer is upon us on Thursday and, glory be, it is still possible to skip down St John’s Wood Road with a sense of eager anticipation. That happy scenario was beyond most people’s expectation when they first studied the fixture list.
The assumption was that all the significant Test cricket would be done by now and the focus would be on the scrap for tour places for Australia. The second tourists of the summer, ranked ninth in the International Cricket Council’s table, would not be able to cope. But, as Brian Lara pointed out in his Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s earlier this week, “a West Indian side, described as the worst Test team of the last 50 years, stood up and was counted at Headingley”.
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