Time for me to clock off. Thanks for your company, correspondence and links to Simon & Garfunkel. It’s been a cracking season, from the women as well as the men. Make sure you enjoy the off-season, because it only lasts three days.
The winter of 2023-24 starts on Saturday, when England’s first XI have a warm-up game against the might of India. In nine days’ time, they’ll be defending the World Cup – meeting New Zealand in yet another re-staging of the 2019 final. The cricket rolls on relentlessly, but it hardly ever gets dull, because this generation of players are so electric. See you soon!
Updated
Three players were outstanding today. First Phil Salt got England off to something well beyond a flier, flaying 18 off the first four balls of the day and racing to 61 in the space of seven overs, like a one-man team.
Then Craig Young calmly turned the tide, aiming for the top of off stump, removing both Salt and Will Jacks and giving Ireland a glimmer of respectability. And finally Ben Duckett, after a slow start, found his dancing feet to reach the first, and last, individual hundred of the series.
Jacks and Zak Crawley were on fire too, making 90 between them off 63 balls. These England second-stringers are first-rate. It’s astonishing that when the World Cup squad fly out tomorrow, there won’t be room for even one of this top four. Duckett especially could have swept all before him in India like Graham Gooch in 1987.
It’s a shame, too, that Ireland won’t be there. At either end of this English summer, they’ve been spirited and sporting.
Updated
