You know what, we’re going to do precisely that. Thanks for the suggestion (and also for the Burns gag).

Rory Burns’s ankle…

…as in, damaged ligaments…

…he isn’t pedaling a bicycle with his foot at a jaunty angle or anything like that.

You may want to place a cheeky bet on the 2019 World Cup though.

Don’t change the past!

You changing the past is probably how we ended up in this predicament.

Good suggestion, 2015 me.

(also, 2015 me – brace yourself for some bad news over the next few years)

I agree with your point about “appointment to view start days” – it has certainly been an issue for our regular Edgbaston gathering, The Heavy Rollers.

But there is no law of physics (or employment) that says that you cannot start a test match on a Thursday after finishing its predecessor on the Monday.

In England, I fear we’ll have more weather-affected draws if we do the four day thing. The fifth day is rarely needed except when the weather intervenes – but the weather does tend to intervene – here in Blighty more than it does in most other places.

Well, you say that, but they are actually playing six Tests again this year, as opposed to the seven that was the default for quite a few years.

On the other point, the aim of the four-day thing is not just to find new fans but also get existing ones into the grounds. We get the impression they think there’s an issue with both aspects.

All true. This year I thought I had first day tickets for Old Trafford, only to discover I had the second day and had to suffer watching Smith make the ugliest double century in history as a consequence. My comments were based on the assumption, though, that the idea of the 4 day tests was to attract new viewers, not looking after the choir. The obvious solution to making tests all start on the same day, like they used to, would seem to play a couple fewer every summer, but I suspect I would be marched to the door of the ECB by security.

They’re not big, persuasive things, but they are issues nonetheless.

For years and years and years a big group of us, who live all around the country, would go to day three of the Old Trafford Test, which was on a Saturday. As the start day slid around and Old Trafford Tests ceased to be a predictable annual thing, fewer and fewer of us would go. It sounds trivial, but as soon as there was a single question about what the plan would be, there was a drop-off.

‘Saturday, day three,’ used to be an assumption and everyone could just work to that without any great debate.