“Love a speculative squad game…” says Will Juba. “Mine would be very similar to yours, but I’d be keen to have Woakes in to see how he goes abroad. It seems there is more and more talk that he may be up for the Ashes down under, so if that’s the case he needs to be tested beforehand. I’d therefore take him to Pakistan and New Zealand and see how he gets on. My fourth seamer would then not be Potts (who I would take if I wasn’t taking Woakes), but either Stone or Hull – decided on how they get on in this test. It’d only be Hull if he did something really special, otherwise Stone would be the one.”
I know what you mean about Woakes, I’m just not sure whether Pakistan will tell us much about his suitability for Australia. I would take him to New Zealand, more because of his potential effectiveness than as an Ashes trial. I suspect England will keep an open mind all the way through next summer. Even if Woakes doesn’t go to Australia, if he’s bowling as well as he has in the last two years I’d play him in as many Tests as possible against India. England need to win that series. No point going to Australia with a bespoke squad if you’ve just been plugged at home by India.
“Duckett is such a pugnacious opener isn’t he?” says Max Williams. “He’ll rack up 100 Tests and play the same innings in all of them. Him and Crawley should go very well in Australia.”
I’d worry slightly about Duckett with the extra bounce, but he’s so smart and resourceful that he should find a way. Crawley, as you have said before, has the potential to play like Michael Vaughan in 2002-03 given the quality of his driving and pulling.
“Too soon for Jofra to be back?” says David Nicholls. “Those pitches are pretty unforgiving as well. Also Gus wants a word for leaving him out of the allrounders section…”
Arf. Definitely too soon for Jofra I would say; he has to be managed so carefully. I wondered about Woakes but I would leave him out, partly because England shouldn’t need his runs as much if they play one or maybe two of Lawrence, Jacks and Hartley.
September in London
Just look at this man
“Well, here we are, end of summer,” writes Rob Grey from The Oval. “Spirits still high outside the ground and at the bar. Weather is meh, but we need to find a way to get back out there. Good chance to play Sunsleeper by Barry Can’t Swim, please. Overlooked for the Mercury prize last night.”
I can’t believe M People won again.
Still no immediate prospect of a resumption, so I’ll start sifting through your emails.
“I can see England taking four spinners and only three seamers, with Rehan Ahmed being the obvious fourth choice in terms of variety and also slightly higher batting ability,” says Richard O’Hagan. “I am sure that Lawrence will get the nod over Jacks as he is supposedly a good player of slow bowling. And I presume the Cox that you have listed as the back-up keeper is Ben and not Jordan.
“On that note I wonder if they will even bother with a back-up and take an extra player elsewhere, reasoning that they have both Duckett and Pope who can fill in if need be. The lack of warm-up games nowadays almost renders the back-up keeper role otiose, doesn’t it?”
And just like that, the word ‘otiose’ appeared in an OBO for the first time. I think they’ll take Cox as much as the spare batsman as the back-up keeper. Mind you, second guessing Baz, Ben and Bob is a fool’s errand. As for the spinners, I think they would definitely do that if they were going to, say, Bangladesh, but seamers usually play quite a big part in Pakistan.
“Being a bit of a stats geek,” begins Matt Pitchforth, who knows exactly how to get a boy’s attention, “I dug a bit further into the fastest fifties after being put into bat. Checking the top 12 on the Statsguru link I reckon Duckett’s knock today is joint seventh, but relatively pedestrian by his standards.
Dilshan 30 balls
Duckett (vs WI) 32
Duckett (ws NZ) 36
Tamim Iqbal (vs NZ, Hamilton) 37
Gayle 42
Sehwag 45
Duckett (vs SL) 48
(7=) Tamim Iqbal (vs NZ, Wellington) 48
Umar 62
Trescothick 74
“No records exist for Simmons or Sohail. Hayden’s 380 is worth its own analysis as he started slowly then went through the gears.
50 off 107 balls (SR 46.7)
100 off 210 (2nd 50 off 103, SR 48.5)
150 off 242 (3rd 50 off 132, SR 37.9)
200 off 292 (4th 50 off 50, SR 100.0)
250 off 321 (5th 50 off 29, SR 172.4)
300 off 362 (6th 50 off 41, SR 122.0)
350 off 402 (7th 50 off 40, SR 125.0)
380 off 437 (last 30 SR 85.7)
“A worthwhile investment of 15 mins of my lunch break.”
And so say all of us.
If you have access to Sky Sports, they’re showing highlights of the innings Graham Thorpe cherished more than any other: 124 against South Africa at The Oval in 2003, when he became the only England player to twice score a century on debut. His death isn’t getting any easier, is it?
Weather update
It’s grim down south. The light seems to be a bigger problem than rain, though I’m not actually at the ground so I could be talking out of my isobar.
Lunch
The umpires have taken an early lunch, which gives us all time to reflect on our life choices think about a squad for Pakistan. See you in 30 minutes or so.
Come on then, who will/should be in the Pakistan tour party? Let’s assume a 16-man squad and that everyone is fit. Off the top of my head, this is what it might look like.
Batters Crawley, Duckett, Pope, Root, Brook
Allrounders Stokes, Lawrence or Jacks
Wicketkeepers Smith, Cox
Spinners Bashir, Leach, Hartley
Seamers Atkinson, Wood + two more.
I’d pick Potts as the hard yakka man, then maybe Stone? I’d be tempted to take Sam Cook as well, though maybe they could save him for New Zealand. I’d love to see Ollie Robinson repeat his performances in Pakistan two years ago; probably too soon for a recall though.
I’m off to grab a coffee. Here’s something to help you deal with the separation anxiety.
“Ben Duckett is averaging a shade under 40 after 25 Tests,” writes Andrew Howard. “He does exactly what his coach and captain tell him to do and he appears to have zero consideration of his own average/scores by 100 per cent committing to the Baz/Stokes instruction. It’s kind of admirable.”
What’s with the “kind of”?
Duckett’s 48-ball fifty must be one of the fastest by an opener whose team have been put into bat. It’s not quite the same thing, but Duckett has three of the six fastest 50+ scores by openers who were put in on the first morning. Here’s the list. That’s a helluva knock by Phil Simmons in ninth place as that was the unofficial World Test Championship final.
Bad light stops play
It’s really gloomy and the umpires are taking the players off. Sri Lanka don’t have any specialist spinners so there was no chance of them continuing with part-time slow bowlers.
It has started to rain anyway so I suspect they’d have been off regardless.
14th over: England 76-1 (Duckett 51, Pope 14) Vishwa Fernando returns to the attack. Duckett clatters him through the covers for three to reach a superb fifty from 48 balls, one that has made a mockery of the overhead conditions and put Sri Lanka on the back foot. It’s worth re-upping everyone’s favourite Duckett stat: his strike rate of 87 is the highest of any Test opener with at least 500 runs, and 20 ahead of England’s next best.
Pope has a couple of jittery moments, playing and missing and then setting off for a non-existent single. Duckett sent him back and I think he’d have been home even with a direct hit.
Meanwhile, if Jimmy isn’t in Australia in 2025-26, Rob Key and I are through.
14th over: England 73-1 (Duckett 48, Pope 14) Kumara slips one a bit wider to beat Pope’s attempted drive. Oliver!
“After steady drizzle in Northampton last night for Somerset’s solid quarter final victory over the Steelbacks we are thankfully back to walk to wall sunshine in the north of the county,” writes Kim Thonger. “Nobody can drive anywhere because the Burghley horse trials are on and all roads are either closed or clogged so we must stay in our gardens and read the OBO.
“I am very much in favour of Baz’s promotion and furthermore I think Angela Rayner should make him housing tsar. House building would be much faster. No time would be wasted building pesky foundations and bricks would be laid, without time consuming mortar, in batches of four and six, apart from the occasional quick single brick to keep progress going. Building regulation inspectors would be replaced by a review system, only deployed in the event of an actual building collapse. It all makes sense doesn’t it?”
I wouldn’t put it past him; he is a motivational genius. But what nobody has yet captured is how he does it. Maybe he doesn’t know himself.
13th over: England 73-1 (Duckett 48, Pope 14) As if to goad Rathnayake, Duckett steers him at catchable height between gully and short third man. He follows that with an even better shot, a wristy slap through extra cover off the back foot. Duckett has mauled Rathnayake this morning, hitting 19 from 11 balls, but Rathnayake has the last word in that over with a very good delivery that seams away to beat the edge. Just bowl there, again and again.
Drinks A very good spot from Tim de Lisle, who will be here for the second half of the day: that four was only Pope’s second of the series.
12th over: England 65-1 (Duckett 40, Pope 14) Pope flicks Kumara off the pads for three more. So far he has been on the right side of the busy/frantic line.
Talking of line, that has been Sri Lanka’s main problem this morning. It didn’t help that, when Rathnayake tried to plug in on off stump, Duckett leathered him over the top for successive boundaries.
My word, Pope ends the first hour of play with a majestic flat pull for six off Kumara. That’s a helluva stroke, especially as he was out to that shot early in his innings at Lord’s.
11th over: England 55-1 (Duckett 39, Pope 5) Pope, who needs runs for peace of mind as much as anything, gets off the mark with a stylish late cut for four. His place isn’t under threat yet, but the emergence of Jamie Smith and Jordan Cox could mean the walls start to close in over the next 12 months. I’m getting ahead of myself; for now he’s England’s best No3, even if he hasn’t scored quite as many runs as we would like.
“We’ve gone from one Surrey opener who tried to hit everything on the legside (Dom Sibley) to another in Dan Lawrence,” says Gary Naylor. “It’s not going to work second time round either is it?”
No, but I’m not sure Legside Larry (Surrey) has much to do with it. I also thought Sibley was unfairly maligned, but that’s another story. On Lawrence, I guess we can’t expect England to make loads of leftfield decisions and get them all right. It reminds me of something the late Neil Kulkarni said on Chart Music in a glorious rant about the decline of the music press: that to have great pieces by writers like Taylor Parkes and Kulkarni himself, you need to accept the odd stinker. Otherwise you’re asking people to make an omelette without breaking any eggs. He put it far more eloquently than that of course, and with a lot more swearing.
10th over: England 50-1 (Duckett 39, Pope 0) Actually, the ball that dismissed Lawrence was nowhere near as wide as I thought. Ricky Ponting, one of the greatest pullers of all time, said he didn’t commit properly to the shot and therefore didn’t get enough speed into the ball.
Duckett steals a two and a one to move to 39 from 37 balls; that’s after England were put into bat on a miserable morning. He’s not a great cricketer, but he is an extraordinary one.
WICKET! England 45-1 (Lawrence c Nissanka b Kumara 5)
And like that, he’s gone. Lawrence was looking relatively comfortable but then tried to a pull a flick-ball that just wasn’t there for the shot. It was too wide and slightly too full, which meant it took a thick edge and looped gently to gully.
9th over: England 45-0 (Duckett 36, Lawrence 5) Milan Rathnayake replaces Asitha Fernando, who bowled an okay spell of 4-0-10-0. His first ball is fractionally full and timed down the ground for three by Duckett. He must be such a pain in the arse for new-ball bowlers, the cricket equivalent of a striker like Preben Elkjaer who doesn’t give a centre-back a moment’s peace.
England’s new white-ball coach is reportedly at today’s game, and Duckett tries to impress him by playing two spectacular shots for four – the first was blasted over extra cover on the run, the second driven over wide mid-off. Just outstanding batting.
8th over: England 33-0 (Duckett 25, Lawrence 4) Duckett is in Sri Lanka’s heads. They only have two slips, can’t decide where to bowl to him and for the moment look like a team on the defensive. It’s been an excellent start for England, and Lawrence, though becalmed, has looked more comfortable than most of us expected.
“Will Vignoles is not having a fever dream,” says James Higgott. “I saw Simon Jones run in against the New Zealanders that summer at Lord’s. Day 1 was overcast, a bit cold and we were ‘treated’ to a very slow 93 from Mark Richardson. Simon Jones’ speedy reverse swing was by far the highlight of the day, even if Richardson mostly dead-batted it back to him.”
He also bowled a serious spell of reverse to Brendon McCullum on the fourth morning, when McCullum was threatening to take the game away from England.
7th over: England 29-0 (Duckett 22, Lawrence 3) The consensus in the Sky commentary box, which includes Ricky Ponting for this Test, is that Sri Lanka have bowled poorly so far. Their line has been a bit erratic, as shown when Lawrence clips Asitha to fine leg for a single.
“Regarding player confusion, I once had a season scoring for a team who had twins playing, and it was only obvious which one was which when they bowled – one was left-handed and one was right-handed,” says Andy Flintoff. “There were constant cries from the booth of ‘which one?’ to the nearest fielder ensued if a catch was made or a run-out was effected by either of them. At least now with numbers on shirts and jumpers, it’s a bit easier.”
6th over: England 27-0 (Duckett 21, Lawrence 2) Chandimal is okay to continue. Kumara is too short to Duckett, who slaps a wristy back cut for four more. That’s a terrific shot. Even in helpful bowling conditions, he has scooted to 21 from 24 balls.
Lawrence works his 11th ball off the pad for a couple to get off the mark. He played and missed twice early on but has played calmly since then.
5.1 overs: England 20-0 (Duckett 16, Lawrence 0) Vishwa is replaced by Kumara after only a couple of overs. His first delivery, a short ball down the leg side, beats Duckett’s attempted pull, then wobbles nastily and hits Chandimal on the end of of the finger. He’s in a bit of pain and the physio is coming on.
5th over: England 18-0 (Duckett 16, Lawrence 0) Duckett clatters a wide ball from Asitha behind square for three. He’s so dangerous, even when conditions are in the bowling team’s favour, because he can demoralise you so quickly.
Lawrence is still on nought after 10 balls, though theer’s no sign of him getting flustered.
4th over: England 15-0 (Duckett 13, Lawrence 0) Dan Lawrence is on his home ground but there’s nothing comforting about these conditions. He’s effectively an alien, opening the batting against the moving ball, and he is again beaten when he tries to work Vishwa to leg.
Lawrence starts to leave the ball after that, including one delivery that bursts from a length and almost hits Chandimal in the face. He manages to parry it for a bye. It’s actually Chandimal who is keeping, not Kusal Mendis.
Vishwa fails to adjust his line for Duckett, who clips crisply through square leg for four and flicks the next ball past midwicket for three. He’s surely the busiest opener England have ever had.
3rd over: England 6-0 (Duckett 6, Lawrence 0) Three strokes of luck for Duckett. First he is beaten, trying to smash Asitha into a different postcode; then he bottom-edges just past off stump and away for four; and finally he pushes warily at a beauty and is beaten. Duckett has quietly had a modest summer so he could also do with some runs. Not that he’s under any pressure for his place at this stage.
“Surely it isn’t surprising Josh Hull has an enormous ceiling, given how tall he is?” writes Smylers. “I’d’ve thought it’s something most people of his height would look for in a property, so they don’t keep banging their heads.”
It was only a matter of time.
2nd over: England 2-0 (Duckett 2, Lawrence 0) The left-armer Vishwa Fernando, brought back into the side, shares the new ball. In the past this would have been the kind of morning on which you want to leave as much as possible, but England aren’t wired that way. Dan Lawrence, who needs runs, is beaten by a beautiful full-length delivery, on off stump and moving away.
“You are going to have a tough time deciphering which Fernando bowled and which Mendis took the catch,” writes Krishnamoorthy V. “Best of luck with that. As if the existing dread of a typo is not daunting enough, another layer of complexity has been added to your tasks.”
Don’t worry, Krish: I’m a class act. (Also, Vishwa Fernando is a left-armer and Kusal Mendis is the keeper, so any old moron could tell them apart.)
1st over: England 1-0 (Duckett 1, Lawrence 0) No compromise from Duckett, who throws his hands at the third ball of the game and is beaten. He misjudged the length more than anything. There’s a touch of inswing for Asitha, nothing dramatic, and Duckett gets off the mark with a leading edge into the off side.
Thanks to Wayne Trotman for today’s TMS overseas link.
Asitha Fernando will open the bowling to Ben Duckett. It’s overcast and muggy, a perfect time to bowl.
“I’m another with very fond memories of 2004,” writes Will Vignoles. “As a 14-year-old, West Indies at Lord’s was the first time I went to a Test. there was brilliant cricket throughout, but the thing that really stuck in the memory from that summer was the return of Simon Jones.
“There’s a chance that this is all a fever dream caused by my now advanced age but I remember him bowling a ridiculous spell of reverse swing that only brought a couple of wickets but he seemed to beat the bat multiple times every over. He used it to much more devastating effect the following year of course, but that was a properly eye-opening moment. Probably the biggest what-if player for England of the 21st century?”
Without doubt. 26 years old when he walked off at Trent Bridge in 2005.
“I, for one, have very fond memories of that 2004 summer (and not just because of the Edgbaston dressing up trophy that still adorns my living room),” says Tom Hopkins. “Peak Freddie, efficiently chasing down (for the time) some stiff targets and a growing sense of ‘hey, we could actually do something against Australia’. I guess sometimes shadows can be cast forwards in time.”
I guess even when it’s about the destination, the journey can be all sorts of fun. The win in South Africa, when England were nowhere near their best, would have been the highlight of previous decades.
Team news
Sri Lanka have picked the extra seamer, with Vishwa Fernando replacing the left-arm spinner Prabath Jayasuriya. Kusal Mendis also returns in place of the out-of-form Nishan Madushka.
England Duckett, Lawrence, Pope (c), Root, Brook, Smith (wk), Woakes, Atkinson, Stone, Hull, Bashir.
Sri Lanka Karunaratne, Nissanka, Kusal Mendis, Mathews, Chandimal (wk), Dhananjaya (c), Kamindu Mendis, Rathnayake, V Fernando, A Fernando, Kumara.
Sri Lanka win the toss and bowl
Now then, this’ll be a good test for England’s openers.
It’s dry (for now) and overcast at The Oval, a bowl-first day and no mistake.
Wanna play for England? Well you’d better start averaging 60 with the ball in first-class cricket. Josh Hull, 20, follows Shoaib Bashir in being picked on attributes rather than averages. And what attributes they are: 6ft 7ins, left-armer, bowls high 80s mph, swings it into the right-hander. In the parlance of our time, his ceiling is enormous.
Hull has just been presented with his Test cap by Andrew Flintoff. If you want to feel really old, he turned 1 during the 2005 Ashes.
Preamble
There are certain things that don’t come naturally to English people. Eye contact, relaxation – and winning every Test in a home summer. That’s for those ruthless MFs down under. In home seasons of at least five Tests, there have been 17 cases of teams winning every game:
8 Australia
3 South Africa
2 England, West Indies
1 India, Sri Lanka
England’s two clean sweeps were in 1959, when they thrashed a poor India side 5-0, and 2004. Michael Vaughan’s team beat New Zealand 3-0 and West Indies 4-0, an achievement for which they probably don’t receive enough credit. The 2005 Ashes casts a long shadow.
England hope the 2025-26 Ashes will do likewise. That’s been the focus of this summer, which makes their five consecutive wins even more notable. Easy to say they should always beat West Indies and Sri Lanka at home, but before this summer they’d done so only twice in their history: 1928 and 2004. (We’re not including the two-Test series of 2009.)
The weather has helped. Or rather, had helped. There’s a yellow warning for rain at The Oval today, so there could be a delayed start. The forecast, though never utopian, gets better as the match progresses so there should be plenty of time for a result: either a demonstration of England’s new ruthlessness, or a reminder that they will be forever England.
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