England v India First Test, Day One Report Card

Featuring syllables, Bazball, opening stands, being needlessly horrid and Morpheus off the short run

Syllables
Grade: C+

Right. Time for the main event of the England summer - the Test series between the home side and India. As a neutral, a massive opportunity for me to annoy fans of both countries.

The teams are competing for the newly rechristened Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, a prize self-evidently containing far too many syllables. Eight of them? Preposterous.

Yes, as Ravi Shastri explained in commentary, it’s important to discard history as often as you can. Who was the trophy named for before? Who remembers? Who cares? Somebody old. Ugh.

And, yes, the prospect of the new name being based on cricketers who accumulated record numbers of things (ie runs/hairstyles) is seriously tempting. But it wasn’t the only option.

Why not name it instead after great cricketers from both nations who most infuriated opposition fans? Isn’t that kind of division the way to go in the modern era? In which case, I give you: The Broad-Kohli Cup.

Ah well. Maybe they’ll change the name to that in a few years, once everybody’s forgotten about Sachin and Jimmy.

(Annoying fans of both countries: ✓)

Bazball
Grade: B+

England won the toss and elected to bowl. Or, as those maniac Bazballers prefer to call it, ‘chase in the fourth innings’.

Great to see Bazball back in business. England didn’t really need to lean all that hard into their patented antics during the Test against Zimbabwe, but warmed into their work here on the first day.

At one point, captain Ben Stokes was spotted fielding on the wrong side of the boundary. He also later reviewed an LBW shout that was swinging so far down leg side that it pitched outside leg. And, of course, after the Great Bucket Hat Summer of 2023, there were thrilling fashion choices deployed as well. This time, in the form of most of the team wearing giant sunglasses, circa Achtung Baby-era Bono.

But, as it turned out, the fourth innings chasing gag was based not as much on vibes as casual Bazball fans might expect, but instead on knowledge from nerds. Analysis of the data from the last ten years showed that it becomes easier and easier to bat at Headingley the longer the match goes on, with scores tending to increase with every innings.

If that’s going to be the case here, then England are going to score - to use the term preferred by cricket historians - a ‘metric shit-ton’ of runs in the fourth dig.

Opening Stands
Grade: B

Because India got off to the best possible start in this series, with KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal serenely seeing off the new ball, making it to drinks at 0/44.

As an Australian, of course, I am these days completely baffled by the notion that a team might bat for an hour without losing an opener. (Which mostly means we need the women to start playing some matches again.)

Overseeing all this in the commentary box was former England opener, Mike Atherton, exuding his usual air of gravitas and worldly wisdom. Someday, I would quite like Mike Atherton to look over his glasses at me and nod in quiet approval at the point I just made. I understand this is highly unlikely on a myriad of levels.

Spurred on by Atherton’s endorsement, the India opening pair almost made it all the way to lunch without a wicket falling, a Jaiswal double century seemingly locked on. (Spoiler: he would shamefully only get halfway there.)

‘YB Jaiswal’ is the question asked by the back of the India opener’s shirt. To which I answer ‘Y not B?’

Being Needlessly Horrid
Grade: F

Unfortunately for India, KL Rahul was out shortly before lunch, bringing the India debutant, Sai Sudharsan, in to bat at number three.

A big Test match for both number threes, with England’s Ollie Pope preferred over Jacob Bethell (very much the Sam Konstas of England - a batter who gets better and better with each Test he doesn’t play).

Sudharsan, however, was caught down the leg side off the bowling of Stokes for a duck. Unlucky? No. A deliberate plan, as proven by the fact that the wily Stokes had five (!) leg slips in place. (Well, two. But he would have had five if he’d been allowed. Bazball doesn’t do half-measures.)

Still, imagine being so needlessly horrid to a batter on debut. Yes, an Australian side might be crass enough to ruin the day of a first-time batter. But that’s no reason for Team England to sink so low.

Morpheus Off The Short Run

Tired, I went to bed during the lunch break, missing the one (1) further wicket that England took, and the two (2) centuries that India amassed (Jaiswal and captain Shubman Gill).

Here’s further detail on what I missed, in limerick form.

Team India got on a roll,
Exacting a frightening toll,
But perhaps just a glitch
Because you can’t judge a pitch
Until Bumrah’s been given a bowl