Orgy of drives, cuts and clips, pulls, ramps and sweeps added up to hosts’ best batting of this Ashes seriesThe season’s turned full circle. Eight weeks ago, Australia were here for their press day before the World Test Championship final against India. We asked Mitchell Starc what he had made of England’s aggressive play over the last year, and whether he believed they would really be able to bat like that against Australia’s attack. Starc was too smart to fall into that trap, and said, instead: “I guess we’ll find out over the next six weeks”.His grin said everything about what he was really thinking. Fat chance. A 90mph inswinging yorker does wonders for a man’s confidence, not to mention...
An alternate reality tells the story of England’s Yorkshiremen providing a blossoming partnership to save the summerIt is the morning after the day before. The beer-with-breakfast customers have emptied out of the Golden Beam pub on Headingley Hill and wound their way up St Michael’s Lane, scooping a second pint inside the ground as they head to their seats. The sky is bluer than Thursday, the mid-morning sun more powerful. It’s a day for broad-brimmed hats, factor 50 and batting, batting, batting.Jerusalem’s opening arpeggio plays across the speaker system, and the two home ground heroes make their way to the crease. Jonny Bairstow wheels his arms like windmills. Joe Root crosses the boundary with his customary sprint-out-of-the-blocks and a couple...
Former captain made chasing a big total look straightforward against India as Stokes’s side revel in a new way of thinkingYou won’t win Test matches playing like that. You can’t walk down the wicket and hit Mohammed Shami through midwicket, not in his first over. And you shouldn’t try to reverse-scoop Shardul Thakur for six either, even if you are on 120 at the time. Don’t get caught at mid-off the very next ball after you’ve been dropped there, especially when you’re the captain and your team are 267 runs behind. You ought not to have three slips in for Rishabh Pant when he’s 100 not out and running away with the game. You won’t beat India if you’re 132...
If the format is to thrive in the face of T20’s popularity, we must shelve old ideas about how the game is supposed to be playedLate Monday morning at Trent Bridge and Joe Root, 164 not out, is batting against Tim Southee. In the Daily Telegraph the previous week Geoffrey Boycott explained to his readers that Root is a better batsman than his teammates because, unlike them, he “doesn’t play” Twenty20 cricket. “You never see Root play the scoop, ramp or any fancy shots,” Boycott wrote. “His technique is honed and has been from a young age to play proper cricket.” Now Southee is bowling just outside Root’s off stump, looking to take the ball away. It is only the...
England set about chasing New Zealand’s first innings with an abandon not seen from them for several years in TestsTickets for this Test went on sale last September, and so the vast majority of fans at Trent Bridge on Sunday will have reserved their seats months in advance. Really, you have to admire the leap of faith involved there.Batting collapses. Erratic weather. Covid postponements. For much of the last few years, buying a ticket to watch England play Test cricket has been an act of the purest optimism: the sporting equivalent of playing the lottery. Continue reading...