What is the best innings you’ve seen this summer? It must be Jonny Bairstow’s 136 on that arm-pinching afternoon at Trent Bridge – right? Though Jos Buttler’s glorious unpicking of the Netherlands’ bowling attack on Friday was a humdinger of a highlights reel. And remember Joe Root’s two centuries in the first two Tests against New Zealand? That Trent Bridge knock, all tissue-paper delicacy and outrageous placement, was his fastest Test hundred.
Though, for context, it’s got to be Ollie Pope’s first hundred north of the River Thames – the final flowering of his talent. Surely? But don’t forget Phil Salt’s maiden international hundred, slotting into the Bairstow role in the first ODI in Amsterdam. Or Dawid Malan’s delicate nudge to the selectors after being dropped for the West Indies tour, or the fastest England one-day fifty on record by Liam Livingstone, that walking, talking scatter-gun.
