All-rounder seems to play close to his pain threshold but late wickets of Jansen and Rabada turned Test England’s wayThis was a day of hard, thirsty, sinew-straining graft at the Oval, and not just for that significant part of the crowd that offered its own celebration of the life of Queen Elizabeth II by drinking itself into a state of stumbling oblivion under a sallow September sun. We all grieve in our separate ways. But it was also a grinding day of Test cricket in the middle. Not a great day or a high-calibre day, or a day to shift the sense of two scratchy, strung-out teams playing a kind of fever cricket. Continue reading...
Black middle order batter plays his first Test at 32 after a long journey involving lost years and public horrorsA grand old crumbling institution, racked with death, but held aloft by duty, service and succession. Yes, this certainly was a big day for Test cricket. And also for the royal family, as the Oval crowd offered its own soft, sombre hello-goodbye to the monarchical succession.It always felt like the right thing to do. People don’t want to be told to stay in their homes and mourn dutifully. Here the adverts were dimmed, the staging sparse – no greater love hath any governing body than removing its Cinch banners – and the anthems brilliantly sung by Laura Wright, most notably God...
He may play golf with Zak Crawley’s dad but the fascinating man at the helm of the English game has no personal agendaAt lunchtime on a slow-burn third day of this second Test, the kind of day when for long periods cricket simply happens quietly, waiting to happen more urgently, a sudden splash of colour appeared on the Old Trafford outfield.Rob Key looked radiant in front of the Sky TV cameras, wedged like a ripe Kent spartan apple between Kumar and Wardey, looking slim and fit in ice-white trainers and executive knitwear, here to talk about the things that need to be talked about – the review of the review, the scheduling of schedule, mate, all that – three months...
England’s talismanic bowler caught the guts of Old Trafford with an around-the-wicket beauty to dismiss Dean ElgarThe James Anderson End – an elegy in four words. Or six balls. Except it isn’t. There is nothing elegiac about James Anderson, despite entering his fifth decade, despite his 100th home Test, despite a touch of grizzlement about the beard. He has got 664 Test wickets under the belt and is taking a smart right turn straight towards the next milestone.This could be his last Test at Old Trafford. Except it won’t be. The fourth Ashes Test next July has his name all over it, as he stands slim as a broom handle at the end of his mark, white wristbands dipped in...
On a vintage Test-match day, the England captain bent the occasion to his will in heartwarming and engrossing fashionThere are still some unchanging certainties in the English cricketing summer; many of which were on show on a humid, bellicose second day of this second Test.Specialist wicketkeepers are busy at the crease, all bottom-handed crunch and ferrety shovels. Anything with the name Strauss attached to it will be accepted as objective, unchallenged gospel (call it The Strauss Hundred and we’d never have heard a whimper). Old Trafford will continue to remake the world as a series of red glass boxes, the compulsory template for any licenced Manchester architect. Perhaps the eastern stand, currently flattened, might bring something new. We might get...