England v India Fifth Test, Day One Report Card

Featuring preposterous nonsense, not playing any bowlers, wayward Tongues and DIY Morpheus off the long run

Preposterous Nonsense
Grade: A

What a topsy-turvy series this is! Just as you think one side has come up with the most preposterous piece of nonsense, the other hits back, harder and stupider than ever. Magnificently silly stuff.

At the end of the previous Test, England were the team well on top in terms of behaving ridiculously, having grumpily conjured some top tier asinine bollocks with their reaction to India not wanting to shake hands and call the Test a draw at the first possible opportunity.

Good stuff. Yes, they were understandably tired and cranky and frustrated and disappointed and shoulder-busted, but that doesn’t detract from how absurd their antics were. Still, maybe their tiredness/crankiness/frustratedness/disappointedness/busted shoulderedness caused them to miss a trick - imagine if Ben Stokes had instead offered to bump elbows like it was Covid times? Might that have sufficiently confused India to immediately accept the draw? Alas, we will never know.

Nevertheless, with the home side having gained the advantage in terms of cricketing ludicrousness, you might have thought India were done, cooked, outclassed. Maybe Stokes - or, as it turned out, Ollie Pope - would turn the screws by jokingly offering a draw before the toss in this match, and, if Shubman Gill was silly enough to shake his hand, claim the series then and there.

But this India side does not lie down! They fought back with some world class ridiculousness of their own, with their coach, Gautam Gambhir, caught a day later, swearing at The Oval staff and shouting ‘You're just a groundsman’.

Spectacularly mad behaviour, and the kind of thing that got loads of people riled up. Understandably so, too.

I mean, the correct term these days is ‘grounder’, surely.

Not Playing Any Bowlers
Grade: C+

Sadly, however, cricket is more than just everybody arguing with one another about unimportant things and calling one another names.

There’s actual bowling and batting to get on with, too.

Or, in England’s case, batting and batting to get on with. Because, after Stokes was ruled out of the Test with the previously alluded-to busted shoulder, their selectors, in their infinite wisdom, decided to select a team without a single functioning bowler.

Yes, Chris Woakes was accidentally still there, as he has been throughout the series, but he soon rectified that oversight by busting a shoulder of his own late on the first day of the Test. (I mean, it would have been needlessly cruel of him to bust another one of Stokes’.) The other members of the attack, however, included Josh Tongue, an undercooked Gus Atkinson, one of the Overtons and Jacob Bethell (!). Wild stuff.

Definitely looking forward to seeing how England somehow comfortably win this final Test, regardless.

Wayward Tongues
Grade: B

One of the things that threatened to help England win was India losing the toss for the eight hundredth time in a row. Why the BCCI don’t hire a team clairvoyant is utterly beyond me. You’re wealthy beyond measure, lads! And you won’t ever convince me that deploying a bit of second sight is against the spirit of cricket, no matter how much the Lord’s members tut-tut and/or scream porcine, ruddy-faced abuse at you.

Having won the toss, Pope ineffably decreed that his team, the blessed and holy England, would bowl first.

Pope did not, however, specify what would they bowl. Which left the door open for some wayward Tongue action. (And who among us can honestly claim to not be at least a little intrigued by some wayward Tongue action. Yes, yes, Popes tend to look down on it, as was the case here. But we don’t all live in a theocracy.)

And so, after Woakes and Atkinson had bowled perfectly sensibly, picking up an opener apiece, Tongue came on and darted in all kinds of sordid directions. His opening over went for twelve runs, including eleven wides, including two five wides, one to the left and one to the right, in classic OG Mitchell Johnson fashion.

Johnson, of course, famously had a pierced tongue. What we need to know now is: Does Tongue have a pierced johnson? These are the important questions that Bazball, in their infinite arrogance, refuses to answer!

DIY Morpheus Off The Long Run

Just prior to lunch, rain swept in and ushered me off to bed, with India 2/72. When I woke up the next morning, they were 6/204.

Here’s your chance to compose a limerick to fill me in on what happened in that 4/132 slumbering gap.

Recommended words you might use include:

Shoulder, smoulder, placeholder, much much older, run out, fun gout, sun trout, wild, mild, stepchild, undefiled, Karun Nair, grizzly bear, electric chair, avocado pear

Good luck!