India v England: fourth Test, day two – live!

Here come the players. Rohit (8) and Pujara (15) to resume for the hosts, who batted carefully through to the close last night. Jimmy, with the ridiculous analysis of 5-5-0-1, will start for England. PLAY!

“All I want is more then 2 days of cricket!” declares Max Murdik. “In Canada, baseball is more then a month away, there is no coverage of spring training in Florida. Just reading about the heat in India gets me through the next few months. Even if the only reason to tune in is to watch Jimmy being Jimmy.” Have faith!

“Good morning Adam.” Hello to you, Paul Harrison, ready to burn the midnight oil with us in New York. “I hope you, Winnie and family are well?” We are! This is our final day of mandatory self-isolation having returned to London early last week. Of course, we’ll graduate to lockdown status after that, so not a lot will change, but I’m looking forward to a long run (okay, shuffle) tomorrow morning.

“I’m loving the cricket, and the mastery of the Indian tweakers in particular, but must admit to feeling short-changed by the speed at which these Tests are progressing. Am I the only OBOer to miss the deep wormhole multi-session riffs of yesteryear? There seems scarcely a moment for you to describe the action, let alone get into a Smythian OC obsession. Thanks as ever to you and OBO team for the brilliant work bringing the cricket to life.”

Yes, these OBOs have felt a little bit more like white-ball games in terms of the speed of the action (and, in turn, action-packed posts!). But I’m sure – certain, in fact – we’ll have a nice rainy day early in the England season where we can take the conversation any which way we like. Which isn’t to say I’m discouraging that behaviour today! But yes, the probability of a quiet, meandering session? Not high.

Speaking of working silly hours, I’m forever reminded of a film that I used to obsess over at university – Late Night Shopping. This might be the best platform I have to encourage others to watch it. Go on.

“Good morning Adam!” And to you, Kumar in Winnipeg. “Really excited for a cracking day. The other day I was looking at spinners in test and found that many of them were finger spinners or off spinners and leg spinners are more prevalent in T20. Is there any reason for this phenomena? Or am I just reminiscing the days when we had Warne and Kumble and they were the outliers?! Anyways good to have you back on the OBO comms!”

It goes in waves, right? Just using Australia as an example, for a number of decades until the mid-1960s, it was legspin all the way – you know the names – and then it’s largely tweakers until Warne/Macgill. And now a decade of Lyon, who will eventually (not any time soon) be replaced by Queensland leggie Mitch Swepson. But in India, there’s no substitute for accuracy, which is what you get with Ashwin/Jadeja/Axil et al. A superb generation.

Another read from last night to get us into the groove, Simon Burnton on Dan Lawrence’s useful, if unfulfilled, contribution. Nevertheless, a nice way to finish after a lean run since his debut.