TOP SPIN ON THE TEST: Rory Burns left stranded on 999 Test runs, just one short of being first England opener to reach 1000 since Alastair Cook
- Rory Burns would be first opener to 1000 Test run since Alastair Cook in 2007
- Stuart Broad missed first home Test for 51 games, third longest England streak
- Previous day of first-class cricket anywhere in the world was 113 days ago
Rain and bad light left Rory Burns stranded on 999 Test runs, one short of becoming the first England opener to reach 1,000 since Alastair Cook got there in 2007.
Twenty other Englishmen have opened the batting in Tests since Cook, with Keaton Jennings the next-most prolific with 755 runs from 2016-19.
Burns will be the first England batsman in any role to reach 1,000 since Jos Buttler — there had been 29 other debutants since Buttler who did not reach the milestone.
Rory Burns was stranded on 999 Test runs at the conclusion of the first day of the first Test
Stuart Broad missed a home Test for the first time in 51 matches. It’s the third-longest streak for England after Cook (89) and Andrew Strauss (61).
Meanwhile, Joe Root ended a run of 77 Tests home and away. Only Cook, at 159 in a row, has had a longer unbroken spell for England.
In terms of caps, the combined 39 of Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Joe Denly and Zak Crawley going into this game was the fewest by an England top four since the Trent Bridge Test of 1989 against Australia.
Then, a top four of Tim Curtis, Martyn Moxon, debutant Mike Atherton and Robin Smith had 19 caps between them.
Dom Sibley is part of the most inexperienced top four for England since 1989
The previous day of first-class cricket anywhere in the world was March 16, a gap of 113 days.
That is the longest drought for 76 years, when there was no first-class match for 172 days from April 11 to September 29, 1944.