England v India One-Off Women’s Test, Day One

Featuring displays of contrition, shows of support, Frank Castle and Morpheus off the long run

Displays of Contrition
Grade: C

Oh, look at that. More Test cricket. This time, it’s the England women taking on their India counterparts in a first ever women’s Test at Lord’s. Perhaps surprisingly, the lead-up to this inaugural match was treated as a celebration rather than the more immediately obvious option of an apologetic display of shame-faced contrition in which the MCC members, as one, spent the preamble to the Test (and perhaps the entire four scheduled days of play) begging for forgiveness for their decades of repellent misogyny and prejudice.

In a way, that’s probably for the best.

Because, despite how obviously ridiculous it was that it had taken so long for a Test match to be scheduled at the purported ‘Home of Cricket’, the scenes of former England women’s Test players all gathering around to ring the bell was kinda lovely.

Shows of Support
Grade: B+

Nat Sciver-Brunt, whose name my hyphen-displacing fingers repeatedly wants to write as Nat-Sciver Brunt for reasons I daren’t examine, won the toss and elected to field. As a neutral observer of the match, I took the sensible option of supporting just a couple of favourite players from each side, as follows:

England: The Laurens (Bell and Filer) - any time your opening bowlers share the same first name, that’s a good thing. It’s why I always used to maintain that Dale Steyn should have been named Morne Steyn. It wasn’t just a desire to make puns about spilling white sauce over your clothing. I’ve explained this many times now.

India: Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma - two cricketers who can, in completely different ways, mess you up.

It is important to note that this wasn’t a closed list. Any of the other eighteen starting players on either side (plus potential concussion substitutes) were welcome to win me over with comedic cricketing antics. A simple mankad would suffice, ladies.

Frank Castle
Grade: F

My plan of individual player-supporting meant that I was almost immediately in conflict with myself as early wickets to the Laurens brought Rodrigues to the crease. Understandably, Jemimah was still in T20 World Cup mode, as she combined with Smriti Mandhana for what may well have been the Launch Phase™ of the innings. Or possibly the Accelerate Phase™. It sure as shit wasn’t the Consolidate Phase™ as the duo barrelled along at better than a run a ball.

They were helped by some ropey England bowling, with a series of full tosses and wide short balls given the kind of punishment you’d expect from Frank Castle himself. (Spider-Man: Brand New Day, featuring Jon Bernthal as The Punisher, in cinemas later this month!)

Sadly, however, Rodrigues played on to deny herself a full-throttle half-century. Or perhaps even a half-throttle full-century. Either way, India were 3/122 at lunch, as I headed to bed.

Morpheus Off The Long Run

Here’s what else I missed while I slept.

Half-centuries to three India batters
But ten wickets - that also matters
All out 285
Kept both sides alive
Neither team’s hopes left in tatters