Root said after the match that before the toss they’d decided to field first, just so they could chase. That’s not a new variation, a modern spin on an old tactic. It is a complete reversal of all received wisdom in cricket. There are aphorisms about batting first, as well as axioms, proverbs, adages, apothegms and thesauruses. This is Fosbury Flop stuff.

In rugby coaching, there is a game called Superpower Rugby, where each team chooses a superpower that they can use once. It might be something like running 5m into touch, or being allowed to carry on after a tackle. The point is to get the team to plan for and use that superpower in the best way. Then you point out to them that their team contains certain superpowers, the speed of a winger, the bulk of a #8, and they should play in a way that uses those powers.

This is Superpower Cricket, except that only one team has been allowed the superpower, and they’ve been allowed to use it as many times as they like. But what happens when the superpower isn’t there? Can it last forever? For a whole summer? For the next Ashes series? Will teams play Reverse Superpower Cricket against it, putting England in so as to avoid the possibility of being chased down?

But I can’t shake the feeling that this is all a terrible mistake, that for all the imminent victory we will get out of this, the future is one of horrific failure, a constant attempt to try to play this way despite this astonishing form having disappeared. Bairstow is Paul Muad’Dib (he has clearly been at the Water of Life in a big way). Victory will come, but after that… ? There is a landscape of futures, but he cannot know which is the right path (and there is a Buttlerian Jihad to avoid as well).

Interestingly, the first sentence in this comment is what you get from following the autofill if you do a Google search for this website, all the way up to seven letters.

I’m sure I spake for all of us when I say we all carn’t spake.

Pipe n slippers stuff. This England team are dogs – they will chase anything.

Even in the world of non-stats and heavily biased samples that are 4th-innings run chase lists, this one is a momentous event. It’s actually a shame they ‘only’ set us 378…

A group of units?

We took it to be more self admonishment because what else would the group comprise?

A bit like how you don’t ever really need to say “period of time”.

‘We are ALL individuals.’ Another film link but I was compelled to say it.

Are they all clones? Have they joined the Borg? I Think We Should Be Told

The really strange thing was, Nigel “Father Barry” and I had a conversation just a little earlier about irritating and lazy expressions used in commentary. One we discussed specifically was “maximum” to describe a six, when it is theoretically possible for more than six runs to be scored. We also agreed that we could neither of us remember witnessing a ball going for more than six…

…soon after which…

Just so heartwarming to see a ball go for one run more than a ‘maximum’.