Time for me to leave the laptop, go for a walk and work out what the hell happened today. Thanks for your company, correspondence and expressions of bemused delight. India are still favourites to win this series, but they won’t be able to do it in a hurry. The two sides meet again in Visakhapatnam on Friday, when the OBO will be back around 3am GMT. Ali Martin’s match report from Hyderabad will be with you soon. For now, I leave you with a view of a famous victory that you could only get from the Guardian. See you next weekend.
What a game Test cricket is. Cut to the bone but still a different level to every other format. Its death is a paradigm of dumb consumerism. Money and margins tell you to make a worse product. At the end of which you have money, for a while, and a worse product for ever
— Barney Ronay (@barneyronay) January 28, 2024
“One of the things that people don’t really get yet,” says Mark Beadle, “is that this positive approach by England has an effect in the opposition’s mind as well, particularly over a long series. We saw some very skittish reactions from the Aussies after the first couple of Tests.” True. And this time England haven’t made the mistake of going 2-0 down. Today’s result, a narrow win after batting first, is what they would have managed in the first Test of the Ashes had it not been for that fine rearguard action from Pat Cummins.
