Stokes wages turf war
You do not mess with Ben Stokes, for he is a man who bears a grudge and enjoys the taste of revenge. In the morning he was fielding at leg slip when Marnus Labuschagne deflected a 93mph Mark Wood delivery towards him. It bounced into his shin and looked extremely painful. Stokes wasn’t just going to stand there and take it. But he couldn’t wreak revenge on Wood, a friend since childhood, it would be unsporting to assail Labuschagne and, as several members of the Australia side could tell him, messing up the ball sometimes brings unpleasant consequences.
That only left the patch of turf on which it bounced, and thus that grass was doomed. A member of the ground staff was summoned to paint an accusatory circle around it, then at lunch it was humanely destroyed and replaced with some sand. There are Just Stop Oil protestors who have been made to feel more welcome at Test grounds this summer than that small circle of turf, which ended up becoming compost mentis.
Old Trafford’s poster boys
To celebrate 30 years since Shane Warne produced the ball of the century on this ground, Lancashire have installed a giant art installation – which turns out to be a big poster of a celebrating Warne and a nonplussed Mike Gatting.
“Hopefully we’ll have some younger fans here this week seeing the artwork and their parents or grandparents will be telling them the story,” said Lancashire Cricket’s chief executive, Daniel Gidney.
“Test cricket in iconic venues like Old Trafford is about storytelling and that is one of the best stories that we’ve ever told.” They might have got carried away with their storytelling when they described their poster as an art installation, but it’s a nice idea.
Captain hopes to defy odds
Also commemorating the 30th anniversary of that match was Stokes, who became the first England captain to win a toss at Old Trafford and choose to field since Graham Gooch set the stage for Warne to do his storytelling in 1993. No captain has ever chosen to field here and won, though this is only the 11th time one has tried, and if any team can end the streak it is this England.
When Stokes wins the toss he fields 63.6% of the time (compared with 27.3% of toss‑winners across all of Test history), and he has won 90% of his games when batting second (against a historic average of 32.6%). It may be that on this occasion the decision will come back to bite him – but as that patch of grass will testify, it’ll be in trouble if it does.
