England v India Third Test, Day Four Report Card

Featuring roaring furiously, Harry Brook's lovely empty head, Washington spin and Morpheus off the long run

Roaring Furiously
Grade: B+

After the heated end to the third day, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett resumed against the still-enraged India bowlers. And by ‘bowlers’, I mean ‘Mohammed Siraj’. One imagines that Shubman Gill was bugging him throughout the night, calling him up at all hours just to say ‘hey, remember how Zak wasted so much time feigning a finger injury?’ and ‘boy, did you see how Ben Duckett looked at you that one time? Didn’t like that’.

Siraj was therefore at his enraged best, roaring furiously at everything that happened. An edge flies over slip to the boundary? Roar furiously. Duckett limply pulls it to mid on? Roar furiously. Ollie Pope trapped in front? Roar furiously. Learns that Lord’s denied membership to women until 1999? Roar furiously.

At the other end, Jasprit Bumrah smiled his way to no wickets, despite finding a spot on the pitch that allowed him to torment Crawley mercilessly, the ball leaping up at him on the regular, making him look like a giant, gangly goose.

Crawley looked utterly out of his depth, clearly struggling with that finger injury from the night before, as he has throughout his career, and was soon caught at gully off the bowling of Nitish Kumar Reddy.

England 3/50. Maybe effectively 4/50? Because the England camp put out a statement that they were ‘unsure if Bashir will be able to bat’.

Also, he apparently has a finger injury.

The Late, Late (Big) Show with Glenn Maxwell

Harry Brook’s Lovely Empty Head
Grade: A

Harry Brook, however, arrived at the crease. As always, I’m a massive fan of Brook batting without a care in the world or a thought in his head. It’s got him to the number one Test batting ranking, so don’t change a thing, Harry, you guileless imp.