England vs. India, Fourth Test: Day One Review

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Nichael Bluth in Tests

England 75/0 (Strauss 38*, Cook 34*) (26 overs)

In a sentence:

The Indian bowlers barely turn up to a seemingly non-compulsory morning session. And then it rains. Loads.

Player of the day

With such a small amount to go on, there was only one option: picking a name from a hat. And thus the winner was Ravi Bopara, who didn’t put a foot wrong all day.

 

An important note here: we didn’t actually pick names from a hat, we used Excel and its random number function. We no longer own a hat, after being made to devour it following a bet we made following too much Gordon’s gin.

Moment of the day

Andrew Strauss was probably as half-asleep as the rest of us (again – we blame Gordon’s gin) when Ishant Sharma, the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind that was India’s pace attack, nailed him with a short one. Despite losing a chunk of his helmet, Strauss seemed unphased. It was only when Sky brought out their Hawkeye ‘helmet cam’ that the realisation of what happens when you slightly misjudge a short one sank in. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the favoured short-ball method amongst the 51allout batsmen is the Peter Such ‘run to square leg’.

Outlook for tomorrow

Weather permitting (and it’s not looking great at the time of writing), England to continue their serene progress. Someone other than Ravi Bopara to win player of the day.