Key events:
4th over: India 33-1 (Kishan 8, Hooda 0) A superb bit of fielding by Harry Brook sprinting around on the rope, parrying it away with his hand; and another by whoever is at point. Kishan, swirls, top-edges without control, but a running Parkinson can’t reach it. Topley finishes off a busy over by cracking Kishan in the chest.
3rd over: India 29-1 (Kishan 4, Hooda 0) Moeen, thrown into the attack early on, makes the breakthrough. Rohit plummets down onto one knee and sweeps him behind square for four. And again: faster, higher, stronger. Before being beaten by a quicker one.
“Good evening.” John Starbuck, hello! “Does having flames up their backsides mean England’s bowlers will be turning on the afterburners? Brighter cricket already.”
WICKET! Rohit c Buttler b Moeen 24 (India 29-1)
Great comeback by Moeen who had just been swept for a duo of boundaries. Forced onto the back foot, nibbles behind.
2nd over: India 20-0 (Rohit 16, Kishan 3) From the hotel end, Reece Topley, all long legs and mullet. Rohit watches for a ball then eases him off his ankles to the rope for four; four more square, bisecting the fielders. 11 from the over, without any risk.
In a surprising turn of events, Chris Tavare is dominating the early emails.
“I used to watch Kent play a lot in the early 1980s (I was a strange child!) and I can promise you that Tavare was EXTREMELY attacking, especially in the Sunday League,” taps Stuart Burrows. “He would step to leg and batter stuff over cover. I was astonished by his transformation for England, since he was by the far the most attacking player Kent had until Chris Cowdrey came along, if I remember right.”
1st over: India 9-0 (Rohit 6, Kishan 3) Sam Curran, hair fresh out of a bleach bottle, to start. Two quick singles, then Rohit powers Curran down the ground, Jordan dives full length at mid-off but can only parry the ball to the boundary. He wrings his finger – it looked painful.
The ground, btw, isn’t – yet- full.
With flames up their backside, Brook and Parky have a jolly good laugh walking onto the pitch.
“Sorry to be a pain,” writes William Milner, “but I’m sitting in a bar in symi in the Dodecanese sipping an ouzo and desperate to listen in – is this on TMS or any other website for those of us overseas?”
You lucky thing. I’m afraid the BBC aren’t giving it out today – can an OBO-er help?
And I hope that ouzo sups better than what we drank on a sixth form classical civ trip to Greece. Our lack of civilisation probably didn’t add to the taste, to be honest.
Anyone want to hazard a guess at the amount of boundaries we’re going to see today?
And if you’re sick to death of boundaries, Steve has written something on a stonewaller for the ages.
Adil Rashid has been given a leave of absence to make a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca – so Lancashire’s Matt Parkinson plays, alongside Lancashire teammates Livingstone and Buttler.
A debut for left-arm medium-fast bowler Arshdeep Singh.
No debuts for England, but when there is an abundance of riches, there is plenty to play for.
Teams
India: Rohit, Kishan, Hooda, Suryakumar, Hardik, Karthik, Axar, Harshal, Bhuvneshwar, Arshdeep, Chahal.
England: Roy, Buttler, Malan, Livingstone, Brook, Ali, S Curran, Jordan, Mills, Parkinson, Topley.
England are back in red, with an underlying lion motif.
India win the toss and will bat
The sky is Caspian Sea blue at Southampton and, hang on: here’s Eoin Morgan, holding a microphone in slacks and (very) open necked shirt. “It is the end of something I’m extremely proud of but I’m excited for the future,” he smiles, enigmatically.
Preamble
Hello! So here we are, from Baz-ball to, er, Matt-batt in 48 hours.
Southampton is the venue for this, the first of three T20s in four days, between the top T20 sides in the world. These teams practically wash their smalls together, England captain Jos Buttler will toss the coin with Rohit Sharma, who he waved to on the IPL merry-go-round in the spring.
Buttler is on his first official gig as captain, after deputising for Eoin Morgan in the third ODI in Amsterdam. In the form of his life, there can’t be a better time to take the wheel. This is also Matt Mott’s first T20 series since he took over as white-ball supremo.
Harry Brook, Yorkshire wunderkind, is expected to play after a sensational summer in all forms of county cricket – Buttler has said he will try to balance experimentation with firming up a side. He has a few absentees – the injured, Jofra Archer and co, and the knackered, YJB and his Test buddies.
Sharma returns after a tussle with Covid, and goes into the game with India 2-0 up in the previous couple of games between the sides. Things blast off at 6pm.
