Inherent in England’s approach under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum has been a degree of acceptable wastage, but on the middle day of the middle Test in this five-match epic it tipped into the realms of the UK’s water companies.
As they hopped on to the team bus at 7.45am, the diem was there to be carpe’d. Ravichandran Ashwin was out of the match due to a family emergency at home, overnight chatter about a possible substitution silenced by the cold, hard reality of the ICC playing conditions. And through Ben Duckett’s sublime unbeaten century the evening before, 207 for two, in reply to India’s 445, was a stage on which to sparkle.
