While India’s Virat Kohli talked up the contribution of his newer players, Joe Root admitted his charges have a way to go yetThere was a weary inevitability about the last day of the series. England 10 for one, 10 for two, 20 for three, 30 for four, the wickets dropping like tired eyelids, loss washing over them like sleep falling on an exhausted man.It leaves their winter split neatly in two: three handsome victories – two in Sri Lanka by seven wickets and then six wickets, and one in India by 227 runs – followed by three ugly defeats by, respectively, 317 runs, 10 wickets, and an innings and 25 runs. Related: England fall apart again as spinners wrap up...
Spinner was in luck and in wickets earlier in the tour but will need to dig deep to recover from the mauling he received hereTea-time on day two, and the match is in the balance. India are 153 for six, 52 runs behind, with Rishabh Pant at one end and Washington Sundar the other. England are one wicket away from the tail, and four cheap ones from a lead. So Joe Root decides to open the bowling in the evening session with Dom Bess. It is a show of faith. Bess hasn’t bowled well, but both batsmen are left-handed and, since Bess will have the advantage of turning the ball away from them, Root’s hoping this is his moment. His...
The 23-year-old found a rare fluency with the bat on a day when his teammates fluffed their lines against a ruthless India sideOver recent months the prime minister has attempted to characterise the leader of the opposition, not entirely convincingly, as “Captain Hindsight”. Perhaps the nickname would stick better to the leader of England’s cricket team, who came out for the start of the fourth Test, won the toss, and promptly announced his best team for the third.Sadly the third Test had already been played, with England fielding on that occasion the perfect XI for a notional game that never saw the light of day, a game in which seamers were useful and late-order batsmen were rendered unnecessary by the...
Arguments between the two go beneath the Ahmedabad surface to stir up antipathies rooted in the colonial relationship“I have a question back: what is a good cricket surface? Who defines it?” – Ravichandran AshwinIn Ramachandra Guha’s history of Indian cricket, A Corner of a Foreign Field, he describes the disdain the British showed towards the first Indians who played the game, tells how one of the very first matches between English and Indian teams was “Officers with umbrellas versus Natives with bats”, and explains the way this derision spurred the locals to take the sport more seriously. Related: The agony for Australians having to support England against India Continue reading...
With Australia’s World Test Championship hopes resting on Joe Root’s men drawing a series they trail 2-1, it’s a difficult time for fans who would happily back North Korea against England“It feels bloody terrible,” he said, head bowed over his pint. “Suddenly everything gets turned upside down. I don’t know how to feel about it.” Picture a couple of men huddled over a table in the corner of a pub – there have been millions of variations of a conversation like this. In the beer garden of the Great Northern hotel in Melbourne last week, though, I was offering solace to a friend about having to support England in a cricket match.The World Test Championship final in June will feature...