England / India

Why England v India is exactly what you need right now

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3 minute read

England are about to play Test matches against India. Maybe we’ll just concentrate on that for a bit.

We don’t know about you, but these last few weeks have sapped our enthusiasm a bit. It’s not the Hundred itself, which is flawed and a bit silly, but still fundamentally cricket. It’s the coverage of it and the arguing about it and the fact that the least-balanced positions on both sides (why do there have to be sides?) are the ones you find yourself exposed to the most.

We thought we’d get the chance to write some good stuff about the Hundred, but the atmosphere around it has just been too wearying.

It’s been like walking into the kitchen at a party to find a bunch of people near-screaming at each other about some issue or other. Even if they’re arguing about something you care very deeply about – like a member of your family or the climate crisis or Deadwood – you can’t possibly enter the debate at that point. The roundabout is already spinning too quickly and it’s impossible to climb aboard.

All you can do is slink out again and seek out something less incendiary.

And huzzah, we have just such a thing. Because we have been blessed with an engagement famously immune to any kind of polemica: an England v India Test series.

No-one can bat

When these teams met earlier in the year, scores were low. India have since lost some openers, while their middle-order bankers – Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane – continue to misfire. England, meanwhile, are England. They have as many as two batsmen who average over 35 and one of them is Haseeb Hameed. India’s pace attack is tasty. England’s knows the conditions.

It’s going to be a runfest. Mark our words.

Sometimes it just goes this way. Everything seems to shout “collapse-off” and then the teams hit a couple of flat pitches. As the batters slowly remember a thing or two, the bowlers find they have entirely forgotten how to bowl to non-lemmings.

So that’s our prediction: hundreds for everyone.

Inclusions and omissions

First of all, please let R Ashwin get a game. He is a cricketer we rate really highly and a cricketer who we honestly really rather like, but whenever India come to England, they ask him to carry the drinks. This is insane because he is not a great drinks-carrier. You want someone lithe and quick for that job. Pick a young ‘un for ferrying the beverages and leave Ashwin to his cricket.

There is also the delightfully bonkers possibility/probability that India won’t pick a bowler who averages 10.59 in Test cricket. The mind-boggliness of this is compounded by the fact that Axar Patel’s record was created against England. This year.

Conditions, eh? Cricket, eh?

Rohit Sharma will open and one way or another that will be fun and result in arguments. These will be familiar, inclusive arguments though. We can all gather round and fall out with each other genially and without creating deep ruptures. And whenever things do seem like they’re getting a bit too heated, someone can always bring the temperature down a notch by mentioning that time Sharma ate 25 fried eggs in one sitting.

England are without Ben Stokes, who has had a tough year and who maybe looked ahead and felt like he also had a tough year to come and felt like he was drowning in it all. Hopefully he’ll be back and well soon. But who knows what’s to come anyway, so let’s concentrate on the here and now.

The most strikingly inclusions for the first Test are Jonny Bairstow and Haseeb Hameed, who we mentioned earlier. One of these players would carry great goodwill into a Test match, were he picked. The other would not. They both should, really. Given what he has overcome – what he continues to manage really – the former should be celebrated every time he plays this game.

Summary

Look, there’s loads more than this to chew over. We’ve barely scratched the surface. We haven’t even mentioned India’s astonishing series win in Australia or James Anderson’s near-identical reverse swinging yorkers from earlier in the year, for example.

The point is that a five-match England v India Test series offers up an awful lot of distractions.

Seek them out. Be distracted.

Similar deliveries:

Default ThumbnailHaseeb Hameed might carry his bat Default ThumbnailEngland are playing India – again Default ThumbnailFive-Test series between England and India

30 comments

  1. I don’t particularly care about the 100, but before we dive into the Eng Ind series, I need to get onething of my chest. It’s been bugging me the past couple of days.

    What happens in the 100 in case of a tie.
    Is it reduced to a 5, 6, or 10 ?

    If it is a 10, then is there an option of changing the bowler after 5 balls?

    1. Well, for the most part, it’s just a tie.

      In the two non group stage games, they play a Super Five Balls and then another Super Five Balls if the first one is inconclusive.

      3. 10 years is a long time Ged.

        Citibank has now decided to shut shop on retail banking in India. So there are unlikely to any more Citybank payment gateways or Citi Moments of Success anymore !!

  3. England have no hope without Chris Woakes, the diamond in the rough whom England have kept hidden in a secret display cabinet for too long. The way he has been treated this past year is nothing short of a disgrace. He has only been allowed to bowl 27 overs for England in a whole year, which equates to about 37k per over, given his Test and white ball contract. Stokes and Root are described as multi-format players so I guess Woakes is our only no-format-whatsoever players, despite his talent and skill. Honestly, he would be an automatic choice in any other Test team in the world.

      1. Give it a week or two and the Brummie Botham will soon be taking a 5-fer, assuming his heel is up to it.

    2. If he’s a diamond in the rough, why is he being kept in a secret display cabinet? Come to think of it, why is said display cabinet secret? To whom is it on display?

      1. Diamonds are expensive, so they have to be kept under lock and key. Obviously Root and Silverwood have lost the key, hence his lack of game time (when fit). My secret theory is that he once said something negative about the Hundred and subsequently has to remain mute and live a life like a sacred Monk, forever wandering lonely as a cloud with only sheep and goats as company.

  4. It will be interesting to see if Root and Kohli has a bowl, seeing as you are predicting a couple of flat wickets and grandaddy scores.

  5. Maybe England should bring in Joe Denly, he is one player that most England fans never forget.

    #Denly12

    1. I have warm feelings towards it as a borrowed DVD box set got me through the evenings for a period of time when I had no internet access and was short of things to do after work.

      It was pretty heavy on the expletives though, which I admit would not be to everyone’s taste, and there was a fair bit of repetition of themes.

  7. England play no spinner. While India just about play one (yes, I know, Jadeja is a decent spinner).

    1. We get what you’re saying. Jadeja’s really great, but it still means they’ve declined to pick an even better one.

  8. BBC website on comparisons between The Hundred and Test cricket:

    ‘Both, clearly, have their merits. The tension of England trying to survive this morning is just as compelling as Alex Hales’ six to beat Northern Superchargers.’

    2. The need to compare is what’s getting us down far more than any comparisons themselves.

    1. At least we can now spend our evening watching some real cricket, rather than that daft version that takes all day for several days. What sort of marketing idiot came up with that idea?

      1. And in the New True Form of Cricket (but without circa unnecessarily 20% lopped off), Bangladesh have just beaten Australia for the first time. So there’s that in its favour too.

      2. And now again, for the second time! Australia being thrashed by Bangladesh is what proper cricket is all about. Who needs this “Test” cricket?

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