Key events
Preamble
Afternoon everyone and welcome to England’s smallest game of the weekend. It’s smaller than the football, it’s smaller than the rugby, and it’s way smaller than the women’s cricket. While Nat Sciver-Brunt’s team have a World Cup final, the men are playing the second game in a T20 series that started with a wash-out and may be forgotten before it has even been noticed.
But every international fixture is big for somebody. This second game between England and India is big for the ECB, whose profits for the financial year hinge on hosting India for these two white-ball series. It’s big for English cricket, which is still reeling from Ben Stokes’ shotgun retirement. It’s big for Harry Brook, who needs to carry himself like an England captain, rather than the figure he cut last Sunday – the man at the stag weekend who’s still drunk on the flight home.
It’s big for Sam Curran, belatedly being recognised as a realistic option to succeed Stokes as the Test all-rounder and, if they really are going to burden Brook with the Test captaincy, to take over the white-ball teams. And it’s big for Jos Buttler, who, since a buccaneering 83 in his last appearance for England at Old Trafford, has gone 20 innings without a fifty – or even a forty.
It could be big, too, for someone who is not expected to play: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the teenage wonderboy who had to watch on Wednesday as his elders and lessers at the top of the Indian order limped to 6 for 2. The signs are that Sooryavanshi won’t be picked today either, but his international debut is surely just a flop away.
As always with international sport, there are subplots to spare, so do stick around if you can. The weather forecast is good for Manchester, and I’ll be back at 2pm (BST) with the toss and the teams.
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