(Second Test): final thoughts on the final day
After a final day of controversial incident after which England are now two down in the series, one hopes there can be some consensus that Test cricket was the winner.
It was a most enthralling day, epitomised by Ben Stokes playing a truly captain’s innings of bravura.
The game of cricket is in crisis with a highly critical equality report; there is division between the red ball and white ball format; the once omnipotent West Indies were eliminated from the World Cup by Scotland; and the President of the MCC Stephen Fry’s woke-ish comments have incensed members.
I decided not to go to Lords, but instead make my way back home listening to TMS.
I timed my rail journey to the lunch interval, which was later than normal, which meant I missed visually the Jonny Bairstow dismissal which led to the most unusual sight of it “kicking off” in the Long Room as the Aussies returned to their dressing room.
I was in front of my television for most of the Stokes’ innings, during which the odds narrowed to evens for a victory either way.
It was one of the great Test innings but underpinning it was the feeling that once he went so did the possibility of an England victory.
I will not comment in detail on the rights and wrongs of the Bairstow dismissal – except to say that, after the sandpaper-gate fiasco, this was supposed to be a new look Aussie team bereft of a “winning at all costs” ethos.
It was not.
With the next Test coming up on Thursday in front of the notorious West Terrace at Headingley, expect Pat Cummins and Alex Carey to get “the treatment” …
