BUMBLE ON THE TEST
TURN IT UP, AUNTIE
A LISTEN on the radio for me to start the day. On BBC’s sports report I heard about Chelsea, Leeds, Neil Lennon leaving Celtic, Tiger Woods’ accident, Scotland Women beating Portugal and England Women beating Northern Ireland 6-0. Only then came the Test. It’s an iconic series — more coverage please Auntie!
KP’S A DAZZLER
SO over to talkSPORT for the start. They’ve got a stellar line-up and the first session was brilliant. Neil Manthorp is as good as it gets as a radio commentator and he was on while Kevin Pietersen and Darren Gough provided the batsman and bowler’s perspective of the pink ball. Gold star to KP — he was spellbinding.
JONNY’S LOST HIS MOJO
I STILL can’t understand Jonny Bairstow going home after playing well at No 3 in Sri Lanka. Then he misses two Tests and is thrown back in against one of the best bowling attacks in the world. He looked like a walking wicket yesterday before falling to Axar Patel’s first ball, which didn’t spin. When a batsman’s in form, keep him going.
IT’S PITCH PERFECT
I’VE got no complaints about this pitch. Yes, there was turn on day one but that’s OK as long as the surface is prepared. Aakash Chopra on the radio said India got it wrong playing three spinners — they only needed two! As Steve Harmison said when the captain walked in, ‘Here’s Joe Root to put out another fire’. Sadly, this time he left his hose at home.
BATSMEN WERE SO NAIVE
YES, there was turn but England made Axar Patel look like a combination of Shane Warne, Derek Underwood and Muttiah Muralitharan. I saw Patel at Durham and thought he would be a decent stand-in for Ravindra Jadeja but he’s not this good. England’s batting was so naive. They weren’t organised and got stuck on the crease.
LOWDOWN ON STOKES
BACK to the TV in time to see that disputed ‘catch’ by Ben Stokes. The clue to me was that the fella closest to it, the on-field umpire, gave his soft signal as out. And the TV umpire overturned it without due care and attention. You have to see every angle and the director must be on the ball — 95 per cent of low catches are out.
RESPECT THE UMPIRES!
ENGLAND got agitated. I was hard on Virat Kohli in the last Test and I repeat there is no place for berating umpires. But in my view Stokes and Root stopped short of open dissent. Back in the day, you would get short shrift if you dared question a decision. Now the umpire is challenged at every opportunity. It’s totally wrong.