The England captain is exiting with all the unhurried deliberation of a great cricketer who has been an understated marvel of the sporting age. It is all a little mannered, don’t you think?Alastair Cook must go! Alastair Cook might go. Alastair Cook could conceivably go. Providing, you know, he’s OK with it. In the buildup to the final Test against India in Chennai Cook announced that no decision would be made “in the heat of the moment” on his future as England’s Test captain. No shit, Sherlock. This has been the mission statement throughout, an England era forged in the ice of the late Flower years, where all decisions were made in the cool of the moment, bowling dry, captaining...
Most batsmen would be delighted with the year Root has had, but he is irked to have often fallen with a century there for the taking. In Chennai, the story was the sameIf Joe Root was just a regular batsman he would look back on 2016 with little but fondness, having scored more heavily in Test cricket than ever before and during this time produced a career-best score of 254 against Pakistan in the summer.With one innings to go in Chennai, Root has returned 1,471 runs – a total that has him two ahead of Jonny Bairstow as the pair vie to overhaul Michael Vaughan’s England record of 1,481 in 2002 – and for the second year running has matched...
Liam Dawson could be a gamble worth taking if Chennai pitch recovering from a cyclone leads England to deploy three spinners in fifth Test of a humbling tourThe residents of Chennai have endured a terrible 10 days with the death of the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, followed by Cyclone Vardah, which has caused havoc in a city now striving hard to get back to normal.The arrival of the India and England Test teams in Chennai cannot possibly change much but the fact the Test is going ahead at Chepauk may be regarded as an indication that some sort of normal service is being resumed. Related: England’s Jimmy Anderson questions India double centurion Virat Kohli The pitch being...
In Ashwin and his partners in crime, Ravi Jadeja and Jayant Yadav, India have a trio of all-rounders capable of turning the game with either disciplineAfter the red dust settled in the middle and the handshakes, however tightly gripped, went around, the India captain, Virat Kohli, led his team on a lap of honour around the Wankhede Stadium to celebrate what he later described as the sweetest of his five successive series victories in charge.This satisfaction, Kohli said, came both from the quality of the opposition and the manner in which his side have taken an unassailable 3-0 lead going into the fifth Test in Chennai starting on Friday, coming as it has with three tosses going against him in...
Spinning all-rounder produces first for his country with Test century at No9 and helps Virat Kohli tighten home side’s grip on fourth matchWhile England’s selection on this tour has become so contorted that their No4 batsman, Moeen Ali, registered a third-ball duck barely an hour after sending down the last of his 53 overs, a spin-bowling all-rounder has emerged for India who could easily be the find of the series.Jayant Yadav was a name on few lips when England arrived in the country five weeks ago and did not make the first Test in Rajkot. But since his debut a week later in Visakhapatnam, this softly spoken 27-year-old – a gentle Jayant – has quietly gone about becoming the spin...