‘He was angry’: India admit wind-up strategy to disrupt Joe Root’s batting
At the end of another day of backchat and occasionally fraying tempers, in which the former England captain Michael Vaughan suggested of the two sets of players that “it’s almost like they’ve had enough of each other”, India admitted Joe Root had been the target of a deliberate plan to wind him up and put him off his game.Alastair Cook, another former England captain, had suggested as much after Root reacted to a comment from Prasidh Krishna.“He was angry, he wasn’t in much control, but why wouldn’t you try to upset Joe Root?” Cook said.“I don’t know if it was a plan but you can say that it did work.I just hope what he said was within the line.
I hope it didn’t cross the line, and was good old honest sledging.It definitely got Joe out of his bubble.”Root, who across the first four matches of the series had scored two centuries and averaged 67.16, was duly dismissed for 29.“That was the plan,” Krishna said.
“But I didn’t really expect the couple of words that I said to get such a big reaction from him.It was a very small thing.We’re good mates off the field – it was just a little bit of banter and both of us enjoyed it, I think.”On another occasion Akash Deep put an arm around Ben Duckett’s shoulder to usher him off the field after the England opener was dismissed for a quickfire 43, something England’s assistant coach Marcus Trescothick thought might have provoked a more violent response.“A lot of players would have just dropped the elbow on him,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bowler do that after getting someone out.I’m sure there’ll be occasions in the future where he may well [react].It is what it is, isn’t it? There’s no need to walk him off in that fashion, but the game has been fought in good spirits – although there’s been many words and arguments along the way, the two teams are still getting on well enough and will continue to do so once the game is done.”Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionIndia finished the second day on 75 for two, nursing a lead of 52 with 21 wickets having already fallen on a green-tinged pitch described by Trescothick as “extreme”.“This pitch has been challenging,” he said.
“There’s no doubt about it, with the way it was prepared to be a little bit greener,I think it’s been at the top end of what you want it to be,We’re at the extreme version of what we see in these types of pitches, but it’s kind of what we like – we want pace on the ball, we want the ball to bounce and we want the ball to carry through,We’re happy with how it’s performed so far,”
Yorkshire and Glamorgan wins shake up tables: county cricket – as it happened
Wins for Glamorgan at the top end of Division Two, and Yorkshire at the bottom end of Division One, spruces things up nicely as the County Championship slips into the wings for August.Glamorgan’s first Championship victory at Old Trafford since 1993 left them sitting pretty in the second promotion spot behind Leicestershire. Rain had wiped out most of the morning’s cricket but the visiting bowlers stuck to their task against Lancashire, Asitha Fernando producing a juicy inswinging yorker to get rid of Tom Bailey and Ben Kellaway persuading Chris Green, the saviour of Cheltenham, to top-edge a sweep. Glamorgan cemented their victory when Jimmy Anderson was bowled by Mason Crane – who hopped on the team coach with nine for 126 in the match.A Scarborough, a 22-point hoopla lifted Yorkshire clear of the immediate relegation zone
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Itoje leads Lions on history chase with echoes of former Sydney glories in air
Australia will have other ideas but Andy Farrell’s team are intent on sealing the clean sweep with a triumph that would stand the test of timeAs the 2025 British & Irish Lions prepare for their last hurrah there are distant echoes of former glories in the damp Sydney air. A highly respected English lock forward leading out a history-chasing team in the same stadium which staged the 2003 Rugby World Cup final? It is not the worst of precedents for Maro Itoje as he and his modern-day Lions await their third and final date with destiny.Itoje and his squad would also dearly love to rekindle memories of another significant contest in this city. The decisive concluding Test of the 2013 Lions series was a classic example of a touring side saving its best until last, with a tiring Wallaby side eventually losing 41-16 after a certain assistant coach called Andy Farrell had urged the players to take their hosts to “the hurt arena”.This time around, among other things, Farrell has been invoking the never-say-die ethos of the Irish boxer Katie Taylor, who was asked to record a few motivational words for the Lions
England squander chance to take control as tetchy final Test heads for close finish
Day two at the Oval was played in fast forward and when England are batting this tends to mean one of two things: either the scoreboard spinning like wheels on a fruit machine and pigeons flying to all parts, or the regular clank of spikes up and down the dressing room stairs.There was a fair bit of both, as it happened, plus tempers once again fraying, as the crowd witnessed a bun fight unfold out in the middle. But while India were initially skittled for 224 by the completion of Gus Atkinson’s fourth five-wicket haul in Test cricket, England then folded to 247 all out and an opportunity to take full control had gone begging.The injury Chris Woakes sustained on day one not only ruined his Ashes but it also left England a bowler down in this series finale. As well as needing to give the remainder of the attack time off their feet, this meant securing a decent lead
England v India: fifth men’s cricket Test, day two – as it happened
Ali Martin’s reportThe end of a pretty remarkable day at The Oval. Only 75 overs were bowled, but in that time we saw 342 runs, 16 wickets and thousands of Thorpey headbands.India, who looked a beaten team during a bruising the morning session, showed extraordinary resilience to fight back and then edge ahead in the game. They were inspired by Mohammed Siraj, who took out England’s entire middle order across two superb spells.England need something similar from Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue or Jamie Overton tomorrow morning
Graham Thorpe remembered by England amid the joy and sorrow of fifth Test | Simon Burnton
Friday morning at the Oval, and the ground reverberates to a unique but not unfamiliar sound, the baritone rumble of thousands of pained groans. It was prompted by replays on the ground’s big screens of a particular kind of delivery with a very specific outcome, on this occasion bowled by Akash Deep. The ball flicked off the inside of Ben Duckett’s thigh before crashing remorselessly into, well, the next part of his anatomy that it reached, and with agonising results.The game was paused for several minutes while the pain subsided and the opener regained his composure (the blow certainly didn’t make him at all cautious, and by the end of that one over Duckett had survived a review for lbw, skipped down the track and missed completely with a wild swing, seen a leading edge drop short of gully and reverse-scooped for six).On Thursday evening a very different sound had been heard, Chris Woakes’ cries of pain after he landed awkwardly on his left shoulder having flicked a ball back from the boundary edge, close to the press box at the Vauxhall End
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