India v England, 1st Test, Chennai, 5-9 February, 2021

I didn’t realise quite how soon this was!

Joe Root’s 100th Test, injury and Covid tests permitting. Not quite the youngest to reach the milestone (I think Tendulkar and Cook both did so before their 30th birthday) but certainly up there, with the potential to threaten some of Cook’s all-time aggregate records for England if he manages his workload across the formats in the next few years.

Should be a great series

Channel 4 secures the rights, so first free-to-air live Test cricket in England since 2005!

beamer wrote:Channel 4 secures the rights, so first free-to-air live Test cricket in England since 2005!

Amazing. Fifteen years?

Will be an interesting series.

Wonder what the Poms and Bannies think of Aus's decision not to tour SAf.

The poms cancelled mid tour of Saf because players kept testing positive

embee wrote:The poms cancelled mid tour of Saf because players kept testing positive

Furry muff.

But they ARE touring a festering Covid shithole called India.

horace wrote:

beamer wrote:Channel 4 secures the rights, so first free-to-air live Test cricket in England since 2005!

Amazing. Fifteen years?

Yeah, we’ve had to pay Murdoch and others for the privilege ever since the day when KP and the fading light brought the Ashes home and a truckload of MBEs made their way to that side who mostly never reached the same heights again.

Even county, ODI and T20I cricket have rarely breached the paywall in terms of live action. The ECB has chosen money over public profile, so just further increasing the already high proportion of privately educated players at the top level.

Wow, that heinous.

Yeah, the ECB’s argument is that they needed the pay TV money to sustain the county game. Sky had total exclusivity on live cricket for a decade at least, with BT dipping their toe in the water more recently. But even diluting the exclusivity was seen as too big a financial hit.

Of course there were highlights on free channels (though sometimes low profile channels and/or crap time slots) and of course the national treasure that is TMS (sorry, Peter...) on radio. Radio rights have on occasion been lost to TalkShiteSport, but that’s still free to listen despite the adverts etc.

Free-to-air TV broadcasters showed little interest in live cricket after 2005, referring to scheduling challenges despite numerous digital/online spin-off channels being available (BBC ran about 16 channels for London 2012 Olympics!) There was little public/political pressure until the 2019 World Cup final really, which was made available for free. And the same happened with a few white-ball internationals last summer. It remains to be seen if there is a trend of a wider spread of coverage emerging, but it would surely be good for the game.

Anyway, Crawley out after slipping and spraining his wrist (it’s a long way down, I guess, for him...)

So with Bairstow on rest/rotation/furlough, there’s a vacancy at 3 (with Burns rejoining Sibley at the top). Root is the obvious candidate but do we really want to interrupt his spectacular form at number 4? Other alternatives to take the first-drop slot include Stokes, Pope, Lawrence and Moeen.

Bumrah bowling to Burns

Not sure a cricket coach could watch that duel

India narrowly take the first session. England 67/2 at lunch.

Your burns it looks about as useless as our burns

He made over 30, what are you talking about? 

Anyway, The Vicar and Captain COARIAB steadying the ship now.

Mighty slow going but at least They haven’t lost any more wickets

Well, beats the “traditional” 40-4 by drinks, that we’ve so often seen in recent years.

We’ve got the likes of Stokes and Buttler to pick up the pace when the bowlers tire.

100 in 100th Test for Root. The ninth player to achieve that feat, after Colin Cowdrey, Javed Miandad, Gordon Greenidge, Alec Stewart (on the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday!), Inzamam-ul-Haq, Ricky Ponting (in each innings), Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla. Not a bad list to join... Inzy’s 184 the highest individual score, and indeed the only 150+ among them.

Shame Sibley fell short of a century... great partnership though. Those who criticise him for slow scoring are forgetting the opening issues we’ve had for getting on for a decade since the Strauss-Cook partnership. Sure, I’d love to have an opener who can take the game to the opposition as the likes of Gooch, Stewart and Trescothick did on occasions, but a solid platform is more important.

Day ended with the wicket so no need for a Jon Snow, which means Stokes can get going straight away tomorrow. Hope he can find some form after his enforced break.

Congrats to Joe Root for his ton in his 100th Test.

Root could score 2000 Test runs this year.

JGK wrote:Root could score 2000 Test runs this year.

Nice

Will need 6 days for a positive result though.

Welcome