Rishi Sunak was at Lord’s on Saturday, perhaps attracted by a sense of kinship with a team that effectively represent just one of the UK nations and got in trouble (in their first innings here, at least) by relentlessly and aggressively pursuing an evidently malfunctioning and self-defeating policy. At lunch, he spoke at length to the BBC’s Test Match Special, revealing that his constituency home boasts not just the much-publicised swimming pool, tennis court and gym but also a cricket net and bowling machine, and lavishing praise on the Guardian – “I love the text ball by ball. Whoever does that, they’re so funny. You feel part of a community, the way they do it. It’s brilliant,” he said (he didn’t specify that he was referring to our over-by-over coverage and other websites are available, but we’ll draw our own conclusions).
But his praise for Bazball was particularly interesting, given his own political situation. “You’ve got to give it to the team for what they’ve done, especially when they’re essentially the same group of players with a different approach to playing and leadership,” he said. “As someone who has to also lead in a different way it was just an interesting case study, how you take the same group of people and get so much more out of them.”
Sadly, the similarities between the England cricket team and the UK government only go so far. “They’re really lucky that they’ve just got an inspirational leader who clearly is able to motivate all those people around him and lead by example as well,” he said of Ben Stokes. He didn’t contrast this to the situation in Westminster but again, we’ll draw our own conclusions.
A prime target?
The prime minister arrived in the media centre moments before the interval accompanied by a six-member security phalanx, which sadly failed to protect him from a minor physical altercation. Sunak paused briefly in the lobby area outside the lifts, whereupon one member of the Sky team muscled past him with absolutely no regard for either his bodyguards or his eminence. Still, that’ll teach Sunak to get between Kevin Pietersen and the lunch queue.
Sir Clive’s short-ball salute
Also present to watch England’s barrage of bouncers was Sir Clive Lloyd, who, as West Indies captain, assembled the most fearsome short-ball delivery unit the game has seen – leading to a variety of law tweaks intended to restrict them. “Well, I wonder if they would have let us get away with it if we had bowled that many,” he said, chuckling. “Tell me, is it still two an over? Heh heh heh. It is good Test cricket though, I’m enjoying it.”
Gloves are off for Smith
Josh Tongue became the second bowler to dismiss Steve Smith in both innings of a Test, after New Zealand’s Neil Wagner at the MCG in 2019. He got out to short balls on both occasions, the manner of his dismissal to Tongue on Saturday. Have we finally found a chink in Smith’s armour or is something else going on?
There is another link, beyond Tongue’s bowling, between his two dismissals here: fresh gloves. Smith is renowned as cricket’s foremost glove-switcher – New Balance, who produce them, describe all their gloves as being “as worn by Steve Smith”, which may literally be true.
But perhaps this isn’t such a good idea: detailed observation of Smith’s glove-swappage reveals that on Thursday he changed his gloves when he was on 107, and he was out precisely three runs later. On Saturday he changed them when he was on 31, and he was out precisely three runs later. This is a small sample size, amounting to two of Smith’s 153 career Test dismissals, but clearly something is afoot. Or rather, ahand.
