Category: England Cricket

All-rounder is back on form and would be an exciting addition to England’s squad, says Leicestershire’s director of cricket

As the Hundred fires into primary-coloured summer action, all free T-shirts and AI fan photos, the Spin has been putting her feet up, coffee in one hand, notebook in the other, chewing over the Championship season to date.

If the notebook has proved a bitter disappointment, scribbled with long-forgotten three for 67s, the ruminations have been fun. It’s been a season of surprises – Leicestershire! Lancashire! – and memorable moments, from Tom Banton’s 371 in the very first game to Ian Botham’s thunder and fury over Somerset’s field-of-onions pitch for the game against Durham.

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• England bowler ‘waiting to see extent of the damage’ first

• Recurrence a chance he’d be ‘willing to take’ to make tour

The England bowler Chris Woakes has not given up on playing in the Ashes this winter after he revealed rehabilitation rather than surgery on his dislocated shoulder is being considered.

Woakes produced an astonishing display of bravery in England’s six-run loss to India in the fifth Test of a thrilling series earlier this week when he decided to bat at No 11 with his arm in a sling after a dislocation of his left shoulder on day one of the match.

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• Shoulder tear likely to need seven weeks of rehab

• Ollie Pope will lead England while Jofra Archer is rested

Ben Stokes has been ruled out of the final Test match of England’s international summer with a grade-three muscle tear in his shoulder, sustained during the drawn fourth game against India at Old Trafford. Ollie Pope will captain the side in his absence as England seek to defend their 2-1 lead and complete a series victory.

Recovery from a muscle injury of such severity is estimated to take between six and 10 weeks, though England’s medical team have estimated Stokes’s likely recovery time at around seven weeks. England are due to arrive in Australia for the start of their Ashes preparations in just over 14 weeks, with their captain optimistic that he will have fully recovered in time for a potentially career-defining series.

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• Gambhir engages in angry exchange with groundman

• Fortis tells Gambhir: ‘You can’t tell us what to do’

The spicy spats that have increasingly been a feature of the action in the England-India Tests so far this summer spilled on to the training pitch on Tuesday when the tourists’ head coach, Gautam Gambhir, had a row with Surrey’s head groundsman as his team prepared for the latest clash at the Oval on Thursday.

Ben Stokes’ squad were enjoying a break, but with the series still to be decided in the final Test and India 2-1 down after their fightback at Old Trafford the visitors’ work in the nets was far from straightforward as tensions surfaced in angry exchanges between the pair at the centre of the dispute.

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Ben Stokes and his team got it wrong on graceless end to final day that showed their vulnerability and India’s unity

India spent a day with Manchester United’s squad before the fourth Test, only to then pull off the kind of collective defensive effort rarely seen at the other Old Trafford in recent seasons. But they were not alone in veering away from their pre‑match preparations.

Gilbert Enoka, the All Blacks adviser who made famous their “no dickheads” policy, did some work with England on the training days, only for them to act briefly like … well, let’s just say their adoption of something similar remains a work in progress.

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• Fourth Test, day three: India 358; England 544-7

• Root races up to second in all-time Test runs list

Friday in Manchester belonged to Joe Root as 20,000 people inside Old Trafford watched a master at work. Inevitable is a dangerous word in a fickle sport like cricket and yet the events that transpired felt as close to this as is possible: the likeliest of outcomes once Root gambolled out to the middle first thing under an azure blue sky.

The first expectation was that England, trailing India by 133 runs on 225 for two, would take control of this fourth Test and, sitting 2-1 up, the series as a whole. Ben Stokes, Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley had inflicted such damage on day two that it was going to take something remarkable from the tourists to turn their fortunes around.

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• Fourth Test, day one: India 264-4

• Wicketkeeper’s participation at Old Trafford in doubt

After the row about time-wasting at Lord’s came an unscheduled 10-minute delay on the opening day in Manchester, but this time no one was grumbling. Rishabh Pant was being driven off on a golf buggy nursing a suspected broken foot, the agony on his face as clear as the egg that had swollen up within seconds.

This was a very Pant way to get injured, India’s zany wicketkeeper having attempted a reverse sweep off Chris Woakes only to bottom-edge the ball on to his right boot. England burned a review for the lbw but it was as good as a wicket, Pant retiring on 37 and his further participation in this pivotal fourth Test left very much in doubt.

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Spinner may have thought his Test days were gone, but consistent performances for Hampshire have been recognised

As the one enforced change in England’s XI for the hotly anticipated fourth Test against India at Old Trafford this week, Liam Dawson replacing the injured Shoaib Bashir represents a 180-degree turn on pretty much every metric.

Bashir has been the long-term investment this past year: a 6ft 4in right-arm off-spinner who, aged 21, struggles to get a look-in at Somerset and has instead been honing his craft at the highest level. His ceiling is fancied to be higher than his towering release point, even if he is a No 11 with the bat and a competent fielder at best.

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