England 35/1 – Burns 20, Denly 14, Gabriel 1/19
In many ways, the cricket was an anticlimax. But in a sense, it was reassuring to begin the season with delays due to rain and bad light. That was just so typical, especially after the dry June. Not being at the ground it is hard to know, but on television we saw the pictures of a covered pitch with no rain currently falling. Later, we saw the ridiculous spectacle of an early finish due to bad light – with flood lights. This has been going on for a few years now, but going off for bad light – with flood lights beaming – does not look good. If today had been a One Day fixture, we would have seen more overs. If Test Matches are to survive, the ICC just have to sort this out.
The cricket we did see was good, solid test match cricket. I really rate Shannon Gabriel as a bowler and he easily could have had more wickets then he did. The wicket he did get made Dom Sibley look slightly foolish, but was a result of the ball before when he beat the bat with a little bit of away movement. We cannot be critical of Sibley – sometimes openers do get out to good bowling, but he did make a misjudgement. Denly was fortunate, but he can resume his innings tomorrow – he needs a score, but hopefully he can also use up a lot of balls. Burns also needs to re-establish himself, but after an early LBW scare – saved by ‘Umpire’s Call’ – looked solid. Both batsman need to dig in tomorrow as the West Indies bowling attack is strong – their stats over the last 2 years show real consistency and the worst thing for England would be Stokes coming to the crease before England post 50.
Away from cricket and weather, the day will be memorable for the coverage. It is great to see Test Matches back on the BBC – just highlights of course, but the music evokes memories of those voices from yesteryear (Benaud and Laker mainly). The BBC have made a good (re)start. However, Sky chose to focus on #BlackLivesMatter. Hearing Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent talking about their experiences of racism was chilling. Both were emotional, both were strong, both were positive about the future. The players were united. Cricket owes it to them, and many others, to make sure that racism in cricket is stamped out.
Cricketed 