Key events
7th over: England 15-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 13) Bumrah stitches together a third maiden. England under the cosh a bit here, the pitch has a bit of life in it and India are bowling tight lines.
“I have tickets for Monday with a couple of old school chums, one a vicar, the other a retired professor.” Is the start of a bawdy joke Kim Thonger?
“It will all be terribly jolly, if the England batting unit can just CALM THE FECK DOWN and make sure the game lasts to the 5th day. Pretty please?”
6th over: England 15-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 13) Zak Crawley comes trotting down the crease to Deep but his long limbed swish connects with nothing but North London air. Close! A plink of a drive is nearly caught by the fielder at close cover. A frenetic over of batting but he somehow survives. Crawley living a charmed life at the moment, insert joke here.
5th over: England 15-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 13) Bumrah from the Pav end. They like it when you call it that here. He spears one down the leg side that Duckett swishes at but misses. The next ball is full pitched and Duckett drives through mid off for four! Cheers around Lord’s, that will just dissipate the tension a little in this first half hour.
4th over: England 9-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 7) Akash Deep beats Crawley with an absolute beauty that jags off the pitch and carries through to Pant above waist height. Signs of life! Deep is bowling beautifully here, he rips one back through Crawley that bounces over the stumps and nearly flicks the inside edge. Riveting stuff in the first 20 minutes. It is nibbling about in St John’s Wood, Deep completes a maiden.
Bonjour Michael Jelley:
“Hi Jim, following you from Bordeaux this afternoon; scorchio scarcely covers it.
I’m hoping England’s bowling sextet can keep it up for the duration. I’m a little worried that between Stokes’s stamina, Archer’s fragility, Bashir’s inexperience and Root’s part-timer status there’s a lot of burden on Woakes and Carse to bowl lots of overs and take the majority of the 20 wickets as well.
However, Baz and Ben have repeatedly demonstrated that I know the square root of very little, so here’s to England declaring on 700-2 just after tea, and using their mystery bowler Mr S Pressure to extract the visitors…”
I hear you, but you haven’t mentioned Jofra, Michael? He’s guaranteed to get a ten-fer, that’s how cricket works. Right?
3rd over: England 9-0 (Crawley 1, Duckett 7) Crawley gets off the mark with a nudge into the off and a quick call of his partner. Ben Duckett does not leave many and duly has two wild swipes at length balls from Bumrah. “A yawning gap between bat and pad” says Ravi Shastri, which is – can you believe it from the big man – an understatement. Bumrah pins Duckett on the pad but the strangled appeal suggests it was going doing. It was. It’s heating up at Lord’s!
2ndover: England 8-0 (Crawley 0, Duckett 7) Akash Deep opening up from the Nursery End. He was a revelation at Edgbaston. He strays too straight from around the wicket and Duckett flicks away fine for England’s first boundary.
“Plenty of examples of teams being rolled for booger all in this scenario” laments Ben Bernards. “A pitch cultivated at England’s request to be “livelier”, Bumrah’s back, Deep in form …. Bazball going full Baz, or Bazball losing its head under pressure? Promises to be fun! Oh, and stop banging on about the bloody heat. Up here in the Nordics we’re flying the flag for shit summers and usually have the UK as a reliable meteorological bedfellow…”
1st over: England 2-0 (Crawley 0, Duckett 1) Crawley leaves two length balls alone from Bumrah, there’s a bit of swing in the air but I don’t think the pitch is lightning quick on first glance. Crawley got out to a couple of poor shots at Edgbaston and is a great big chicken for not launching a cover drive showing some restraint off the first few deliveries. A bye wide of the diving Pant opens England’s account, a bit loosey goosey from Jasprit there and Crawley can breathe at the non-striker’s end for a second or two. Close! An angled ball slanted across Duckett finds the edge but falls short of Pant. Duckett then scampers a single to the off side to get himself going.
Righto, here we go. Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett mark their guards. The returning Jasprit Bumrah prowls at the top of his run up. Let’s play!
The players head out for the anthems. There’s a crackle as well as the oft mentioned hum around Lord’s and nearly everyone is in their seat rather than socialising, which is nice.
Martin O’Donovan-Wright, clearly a Fast Show ultra, sends a NICE email.
“Seeing as you’ve got us off to a marvellous Scorchio! start to the day, could I just add that I hope we can say at the end of today’s play that, “Jofra had a great return to test cricket, taking a five-fer, and he gave us all a big wave as he went off. Which was nice.”
Ding dong! Ben Heywood is tearing into Ramps!
“Hi James, I’m not sure I’d take Mark Ramprakash at his word when it comes to advice on getting Shubman Gill out. I was hoping for some analysis and clues as to potential weaknesses but Ramps’ article doesn’t even offer solutions until the final para, at which point he names Sam Cook as the answer…
Vaguely terrified as to what Bumrah might do to us first up but as ever, I will be delighted when Ben Stokes proves me 100% wrong and England are 160-0 at lunch.”
England’s first job is to get a decent score on the board. Their second is to work out a way to winkle the imperious Shubman Gill out. Ramps has been scratching his head:
Andy Bull leans over from his laptop with a mischievous grin to tell me that the average first innings score at Lord’s this year is… 213. Ah. Stokes and McCullum have supposedly ordered a livelier pitch than we saw Headingley and Edgbaston but we’ll see what the ‘curator’ has been able to produce in about twenty minutes. There is a slight green tinge to the wicket at the moment… no you stop it.
I just saw a security guard just rugby tackle a guy for having a northern accent and wearing shorts! Just kidding, that’s actually me. I’ve broken my no shorts in public rule for the first time in years, Bazball gets us all in the end I guess.
England win the toss and will… bat first!
Ravi Shastri has gone full man from Del Monte out on the field, creamy linen suit, fedora and MCC tie. Resplendent. A blue blazered Ben Stokes wins the toss and chooses to bat first. A cheer goes up around Lord’s! I think Stokes wanted to pull our legs for a moment there and pretend to elect to bowl, he’s a cheeky so and so.
Teams:
England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (capt), Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Shoaib Bashir
India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Shubman Gill (capt), Rishabh Pant (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Jasprit Bumrah, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj
Lord’s is an absolute picture, sun beating down and it is very warm already. I’ve taken my seat next to Messrs Bull and Martin in the press box where the air con is thankfully ramped up to eleven.
Simon Burnton has some more on Jofra’s return:
Preamble
James Wallace
Scorchio! That’s the weather forecast for the next five days and the level of excitement building for this third Test between England and India at Lord’s.
I’ve just waggled my way through the avalanche of chinos on the way down to the ground from St John’s Wood station, red trouser count already at seven but I’ll let you know if that changes before the start of play at 11am.
Today sees the return of Jofra Archer in a home Test match in six long years and his first anywhere in four. Archer burst onto the scene in 2019 and tore up international cricket in his first six months, emerging almost fully formed as a searingly quick fast bowler with a liquid action who had all the white ball skills in his armoury and a taste for the big moment.
He dazzled in England’s 2019 World Cup win, bling bouncing off his neck like a souped up Dennis Lillee he troubled nose and toes whilst slipping in skilful cutters and slower balls with a midas touch. Twenty wickets across the tournament and that Super Over integral to England’s first World Cup Win.
He dazzled in whites too, the 2019 Ashes Test at Lord’s saw one of the great battles between Steve Smith in the form of his life and Archer throwing everything at him, mostly at about 95 mph. Smith was eventually clonked on the helmet (as was his concussion substitute later Marnus Labuschagne) and forced to retire hurt and miss the next Test at Headingley. Surely you don’t need reminding what happened there?
A series of freakish and horrible injuries have plagued Archer since, a stress fracture of the elbow threatening to cut down his career before he was able to build on that most electric of beginnings. England have been managing his return with the utmost caution, another lengthy injury would be catastrophic.
Jasprit Bumrah also makes his return to the series after missing Edgbaston last week. His side did just fine without him, pummelling England into the Birmingham dust to level the series at 1-1.
To watch two of the most eye-catching fast bowlers going toes to toe will be a real thrill. Play gets underway at 11am and the toss will be at around 10.30am.
Please do get in touch if you are tuning in… it promises to be… scorchio!
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