Test Match Breakfast takes a look at some of the biggest issues around cricket during England’s huge first Test against India at Headingley. India lead by 96 runs after ending day three at 90-2 in their second innings, after Harry Brook’s 99 helped England reach 465.
Ahead of day four, RICHARD GIBSON discusses tributes for David Lawrence, Brook falling agonisingly short of a century, and how Sunil Gavaskar is becoming an increasingly comedic figure in punditry.
Tributes pour in for David ‘Syd’ Lawrence
Players from both teams shared in a minute’s applause before play on the third morning as tributes to David ‘Syd’ Lawrence, the lionhearted England and Gloucestershire fast bowler, poured in.
Lawrence, 61, passed away on Saturday after battling motor neurone disease for the final year of his life.
A hugely popular figure within the game, he played five Tests for England between 1988 and 1992 in a 17-year career featuring 515 first-class wickets, and was made an MBE last week in the King’s birthday honours list.
On Friday night, Gloucestershire’s Twenty20 Blast game against Hampshire at Bristol turned pink in honour of their club president, raising awareness of the disease and funds to help fight it.
Tributes were paid to former England and Gloucestershire fast bowler David ‘Syd’ Lawrence
England and India applauded on Sunday in honour of Lawrence, who died at the age of 61
Jack shows why England are right to be excited
Eddie Jack was invited to join the England squad earlier this week despite not having a County Championship wicket to his name.
The teenage Hampshire fast bowler rectified that statistic on Sunday, however, as an absolute snorter of a delivery accounted for Essex’s Jordan Cox – a player selected for last winter’s Test tour of New Zealand – for nought.
Social media clips of the short ball, onto Cox before he knew it and looping its way into the slips off the shoulder of the bat, showed exactly why England are excited about the 19-year-old son of a Dorset school chaplain.
Jack was introduced to the first Test squad as they gathered last Monday, but then returned to Hampshire to play some matches rather than train at Headingley as had previously been planned.
Eddie Jack was invited to join the England squad this week and has highlighted his talent
Comic Gavaskar’s Anderson-Tendulkar pettiness
Sunil Gavaskar is becoming an increasingly comedic figure when it comes to cricket punditry.
On Saturday, he flipped his previous comments about Rishabh Pant – ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid,’ was his assessment of one dismissal during last winter’s India tour of Australia – to ‘Superb, superb, superb,’ following the wicketkeeper’s seventh Test hundred.
But he is actually funnier when being serious, emphasised by his ridiculous pettiness in calling for Indian fans to join him in inverting the newly-named Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
‘The ECB is fully entitled to call the series by any name they choose but for most, if not all, Indian cricket lovers it is jarring to know that Anderson’s name comes first,’ Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-day.
‘Not only is Sachin Tendulkar along with Kapil Dev the greatest Indian cricketer, but also senior to (Jimmy) Anderson by more than a dozen years. He is numero uno as far as runs and centuries are concerned in Test cricket but also at the one-day level too he has more runs than anybody else,’ Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid-day.
‘Anderson is third in the list of wicket takers in Test cricket and his record is nowhere as good as Tendulkar in one-day cricket. Tendulkar is also part of a World Cup-winning team which Anderson has not been. Jimmy Anderson was a terrific bowler but mainly in English conditions and his record away is nowhere near as good as Tendulkar’s. I also urge all Indian cricket lovers including the India media to call it the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy.’
It’s the way you tell ‘em, Sunny.
Sunil Gavaskar has called for Indian fans to join him in inverting the newly-named Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy
Brook’s near miss England’s first since 2017
Harry Brook’s 99 was the first such score by an England batsman in a Test match for eight years.
The previous occurrence also involved a Yorkshireman: Jonny Bairstow in the first innings of a win over South Africa in Manchester in 2017.
Bairstow, who remains on an ECB contract until the end of the summer, got to within one of an Ashes hundred at Old Trafford two years ago too, but was left stranded at the non-striker’s end as last man Jimmy Anderson was dismissed.
Harry Brook fell one run short of a century against India on the third day at Headingley
Jonny Bairstow was the last England batsman to get out for 99 in a Test match before Brook
Shafique’s short stint reduced by red tape
Yorkshire, hosts of the first major match of the summer, were unable to field Pakistan batsman Abdullah Shafique in their concurrent County Championship match at Trent Bridge due to a delay in the issuing of his visa.
Shafique, 25, was signed on a short-term deal to cover some Vitality Blast games plus two Championship fixtures played with Kookaburra balls, joining New Zealand seamer Will O’Rourke as an overseas player in the XI against Division One leaders Nottinghamshire.
However, he will now have his four-day workload reduced by half due to red tape.
Yorkshire’s short-term signing of Abdullah Shafique has been reduced further by visa issues
