It was a sticky morning at Lord’s, the sort when even a short walk makes your shirt cling to your skin. And the strike meant everyone had hiked in and arrived red and glistening. There was a lot of talk about what the morning would bring, and given the conditions, an expectation the ball would swing. England had a new one due, too, three overs the start of play, and, as always, the two of the very best men to use it. The odd thing was that they ended up standing in the outfield while Matt Potts and Ben Stokes did the bowling. It was all part of Ben Stokes’s grand plan to bounce out the tail. Like Lance Corporal Jones, he is absolutely convinced they don’t like it up ’em.
So his bowling went like this: short, short, full, a grimace, a sigh, a smile, and short, short, full. The next over was the same, short, full, full, short, short, full, short, and the one after that too. Anrich Nortje played it all with the confidence of a man who bowls at 95mph himself. He rode some, wore others, slapped at a couple, swayed away from the rest. He was wearing an outsize chest guard which made it look like he’d stuffed a pillow up his vest, and he and Stokes joked about it at the end of the over. Then when Broad replaced Potts at the Nursery End, it was more of the same, short, short, full, short, full, full.
