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26th over: India 109-2 (Rahul 46, Gill 3) Jamie Smith stands up to the stumps to Chris Woakes. Plenty of ego driven club bowlers wouldn’t like the keeper insulting their pace by doing the same. Woakes gets on with the task in hand and skims one past Gills edge, Smith shows off some fast hands behind said sticks. Gill angles the blade to pick up four to deep third, it’s time for a drink for the players and a vat of Kenco pour moi.
25th over: India 105-2 (Rahul 46, Gill 3) Carse has looked the most dangerous bowler this morning, he gets one to lift at Rahul who flashes an angled blade outside off and gets a meaty edge wide of point for four. That was risky but India are in a position where they can take a few.
24th over: India 101-2 (Rahul 42, Gill 3) A maiden from the Wizard. England are bowling well this morning, India’s lead stands at 281, they haven’t pulled away yet this morning.
23rd over: India 101-2 (Rahul 42, Gill 3) England lose a review much to Ben Stokes’ chagrin. Gill gets a scratch of an inside edge on straight on from Carse, the keeper and slips all fancy it but Stokes – at mid off – reckons he heard something woody. The troops convince their general to give it a whirl but DRS confirms the bat was tickled. Democracy is overrated eh Ben?
“Morning James!” back atcha Anand Kumar.
“Wonder how all pundits say the same thing about the same things for all test matches? First hour is the key. New ball is vital. First half hour of this session is important. This last hour before close of play is crucial
Do fellow OBOers have their favourite clichés?”
Fine to join in – as long as they aren’t OBO cliches (actually…)
22nd over: India 98-2 (Rahul 41, Gill 1) Gill gets off the mark with a nudge into the leg side off Woakes. There’s some movement in the air and the clouds have a grey-ish tinge to them. The floodlights are on and these are about the best conditions for bowling in the match so far.
21st over: India 96-2 (Rahul 40, Gill 0) Shubman Gill arrives in the middle… he won’t be on strike as Nair fell to the last ball of the over. The lead stands at 276 runs. England would dearly love a couple of quick ones to put a bit of pressure back onto India. Easier said than done of course.
These two batters are two of the most elegant players you could wish to watch, Nair pings a cover drive for four but is then GONE! Carse deserves that, he’s hammered away at a good length and eventually Nair drives at one that wasn’t quite there and the nick goes to hand, Jamie Smith taking a sharp catch with the gloves.
20th over: India 88-1 (Nair 18, Rahul 40) Woakes has Kl Rahul beaten a couple of times in the over, one nip backer and one that holds its line that the normally unflappable Rahul has an undistinguished flap at. There’s something happening with the ball out there and England are trying to harness it.
19th over: India 86-1 (Nair 17, Rahul 39) Carse has found some real rhythm this morning, he looks to be less bothered by his troublesome toes and is pounding away at a handkerchief sized spot back of a length. He beats Nairs edge with one that moves away late and then gets the edge but it is a thick one and runs away for four backward of point. No justice eh Brydon?
18th over: India 81-1 (Nair 13, Rahul 38) Woakes stitches together a maiden. England have bowled well this morning but with no luck so far.
“Morning James. A packed day of sport today, it’s what the OBO/MBM was made for!”
Indeed Guy Hornsby, it is in fact the busiest weekend of the year on the Guardian Sports desk.
“These next two sessions should be fascinating in how the game is set up. England will feel they can’t chase anything, but yesterday showed that even a monster partnership can’t solve a big total on its own. India will want, you feel, 450+, and England will give that a go. It’s a far cry from forlorn hope of the draw in my formative 1990s. This team has made it an endangered species. But it shouldn’t be off the table, either. Going down in a blaze of boundaries to lose by 200 doesn’t help us in the series. But we’re all just passengers now, eh.”
Spot on Mr Hornsby. Slightly more problematic thinking from Tim Sanders…
“Good morning James. I think Howard Banwell might be mistaken if he caps England’s run-chase ambitions at 350-400. It’s three years to the day, at the same ground, against the same opposition, since Joe and Jonny’s partnership chased down 378 with seven wickets in hand. I think if, come tomorrow evening, England were to need 720 from 20 overs, they’d give it a good go.”
17th over: India 81-1 (Nair 13, Rahul 38) Eventful over as Carse clangs Karun Nair on the helmet with a brutish delivery and then draws the edge with the next ball but it flies in the large-ish gap between first and second slip! England can’t believe their luck but they were trying to have a bob each way. Nair survives. Top over from Brydon Carse, he really bent his back in that one and got some life out of this placid wicket.
16th over: India 76-1 (Nair 8, Rahul 38) “India are only going to get better as the series goes on” purrs Ravi Shastri, and he’s not wrong. If they win this game sans Bumrah then the series is well and truly anyones with three to play. A leg bye sees India stretch the lead up to 250.
15th over: India 75-1 (Nair 8, Rahul 38) Rahul unfurls another picture perfect cover drive, how good is he at that shot? He never seems to miss out. Carse nips one back and the inside edge from KL saves him from succumbing lbw. Carse asked the question but Stokes wasn’t interested in the review and rightly so. Edge! Safe. Rahul punches off the back foot and the edge flies wide of second slip. Four more for India, they are rollocking along at five an over.
14th over: India 67-1 (Nair 8, Rahul 30) There are no alarms or surprises in the wicket, the roller was on it this morning and it is still very easy paced. We have seen the odd ball nip and bounce, the wickets of Brook and Stokes for example. Kl Rahul picks up a couple of singles in his usual princely fashion. Nair then clips a ball off his hip for a single to make it three off the first over of the day. It’s cloudy but still flat as all flip out there.
Righto, the players are out on the field, its a bit more overcast and breezy in Edgbaston. Chris Woakes is going to start with the ball, England need some wickets to try and keep India in check. India will look to bat most of the day. Fingers crossed for another belter. WinViz gives England just 3 per cent chance of winning, might be worth a flutter you know…
“I’m torn.” Says Howard Banwell, getting his Natalie Imbruglia on.
“I like very much the positive, go-for-it England approach to test cricket in recent years, but here I would rather see a draw than an England loss. I reckon it depends on the lead India is allowed to rack up today. If England restrict them to a 350 to 400 lead (or Shubman declares with that target on the table), Stokes will be very tempted to go for the chase. More than that, I suspect even Stokes will pucker up and kiss his sister.”
Our man Ali Martin had the task of summing up a quite bonkers day of Test cricket:
Pressure? What pressure? Or to pinch a line from Keith Miller, the great Australian all-rounder and a fighter pilot during the second world war: “There is no pressure in Test cricket. Real pressure is when you are flying a Mosquito with a Messerschmitt up your arse.”
Notwithstanding this old truism, there was still a fair bit on the line when Jamie Smith strode out to middle at 11.12am here on the third morning. Joe Root had been uncharacteristically strangled down leg, Ben Stokes had been blown away by a brutish first ball and Mohammed Siraj, a fiery fast bowler known to get on a roll, was eyeing up a hat-trick. Oh, and England were 84 for five, 503 runs behind India’s first innings.”
Ease yourself into Saturday morning with Mr Andy Bull:
The field was set, the slips were waiting, the crowd was up. There was, everyone watching felt sure, only one way the game was heading. The ball was a good one, on a length just outside off and moving in towards middle. Smith took a half-step forwards and, crack, thumped it back down the ground for four.
Everyone else in this England team had to unlearn a lot of what they had been taught to begin to bat like this. But not Smith. He and Harry Brook are hothouse kids.”
Here’s something I wrote earlier:
“A draw is like kissing your sister,” Edward J Erdelatz said to the New York Times in 1954. Erdelatz was the United States Navy’s head football coach and his side had just drawn 0-0 against Duke University. “No one asked the mild spoken navy coach to explain,” the report adds. Well, quite. But sister or not, everyone knew what he meant.
Erdelatz’s unique take on the merits or otherwise of not winning are ingrained in American sports where a Lombardian win-at-all-costs mentality prevails. Try explaining Test cricket to an American sports fan, they say, with a wry chuckle – the fact that two teams can battle it out for five full days and in the end, there is not necessarily a winner. Good luck, they smirk. Adelaide 1961? You may as well be describing the plot of Christopher Nolan’s Memento to a toddler. Old Trafford 2005? More chance of a cider-addled bee getting to grips with quantum theory. They do not get it, be gone with your quaint English ways, five days and no winner. That’s crazy, man.
Yet draws are intrinsic to Test cricket, they are written in its DNA – a double helix in the shape of a deadlock. Draws speak to its beguiling and maddening qualities, a testament to the game’s downright peculiarity. That a side can battle back from a point of seemingly no return to pull off the heist of shared spoils, drop anchor, defy logic, battle against their opponents’ desire, their own self-belief, against conditions under their feet and above their heads, against time itself. This makes the game what it is, why it is called what it is called. Even when you are on top, it is still really hard to finish a side off and win a Test match.”
At what point in this game do you think Ben Stokes might decide to pucker up and play for the draw? Or will he laugh in the face of such outdated thinking? Preferring his side to go down in a blaze of wickets rather than entertain not entertaining and batting out to share the spoils?
England are playing a more nuanced version of Bazball but whether they still have the stomach to suck up a draw remains to be seen. India are currently 64 for one and hold a lead of 244. India captain Shubman Gill knows all too well that England will try and chase whatever they are set, at least initially, and 371 wasn’t enough last week in Headingley. Harry Brook and Jamie Smith’s barnstormingly epic three hundred run partnership showed the path of one possible outcome just as England’s quacking and creaking batting card containing six ducks showed the other.
Of one thing we can be sure, it’ll be unmissable viewing on day four at Edgbaston.
Play gets underway at 11am and I’m very much here for your thoughts and theories on where this second Test match might be headed.
