There’s a glitch in the pitchside hoardings at the Oval. Two of the letters in the message “BUY YOUR TEST SHIRT NOW” have been compressed so that for a large part of the third day’s play the word “SHIT” appeared to be written in 24-inch letters on the LCD screen that runs right beneath the England team’s balcony. It has been one of those weeks in English cricket. The optimism some people seemed to feel on the first day faltered on the second and foundered altogether on the third when they conceded a lead of 100 runs in the first innings.
It is already beginning to seem like one of those games that not everyone gets back from. At times like this the debutants in the England dressing room feel like rookie pilots reporting for a first tour of duty in a war movie: “I’ve got 150 hours of flying time, sir.” Of the last 10 men to make their Test debuts for England at the Oval, only three – Chris Woakes, Harry Brook and Dawid Malan – went on to play for any length of time. The others, Tom Westley, Toby Roland-Jones, Josh Hull and Simon Kerrigan, were last spotted somewhere over the English channel.
