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...
Joe Root’s side were undone by India’s Axar Patel on a turning pitch but surely it was possible to play better There are days of Test cricket you remember for ever, the ones players relive in countless conversations, speeches and interviews long after they’re gone, so that years later each last little detail of them feels as crisp and clear as if it had only just been earlier that morning. And then there are the days like the one England just had in Ahmedabad, frustrating, exasperating, bad tempered and best forgotten, the ones you would rather just move right on from before anyone ever mentions them, when, at the end of play, the only real consolation is you get the...
At the brand new Narendra Modi Stadium, the skiddy pink ball confused the visiting batsmen by simply refusing to turnIn Indian cricket’s newest stadium, a tale as old as Test cricket itself unfolded as India took control of the third Test, bowling England out cheaply once more. England’s fear of the turning track came to the fore and India’s spinners again showed it is the straight ball that can prove most dangerous when there is turn on offer. Related: India skittle England for 112: third Test, day one – live! Related: Jack Leach: 'As a spinner, you’re going to get some treatment at times' Continue reading...
England are too reliant on their captain so I would bring in Bairstow at No 3 for the third Test against IndiaEngland are in Ahmedabad with the series tied at 1-1 with two to play and a day-night Test to come that might favour their seamers – we don’t know how the pink ball will react to the floodlights, but if anyone’s going to get it moving it’s Jimmy Anderson. It will also get soft quicker and tends to go dead after 20 overs, which means Ravi Ashwin should get less bounce, rag and spin and the batsmen get a fraction more time to react to it.If England’s seamers benefit from conditions Jasprit Bumrah will as well, but some of...
The bubbling superstar of Indian cricket delivers yet another cameo while England’s scene-stealer was their invisible manEven as England stumble-tripped through the desert sands of the Chennai pitch, it was, for two men, the best of times.The first, Rishabh Pant, is the bubbling superstar of Indian cricket. Baby-faced, fearless; a pint-sized serving of warm devil-may care with a cocktail cherry of brash. Many, many, words have been said and written in India about his batting, even more about his wicket-keeping, with a role-call of experts, including Sunil Gavaskar, calling for him to be relieved of the gloves. “A specialist middle-order batsman at No 5,” Gavaskar dreamed, during the series against Australia. But India’s selectors, as England’s, are greedy. They want...