The 23-year-old found a rare fluency with the bat on a day when his teammates fluffed their lines against a ruthless India side
Over recent months the prime minister has attempted to characterise the leader of the opposition, not entirely convincingly, as “Captain Hindsight”. Perhaps the nickname would stick better to the leader of England’s cricket team, who came out for the start of the fourth Test, won the toss, and promptly announced his best team for the third match of the series.
Sadly, the third Test had already been played, with England fielding on that occasion the perfect XI for a notional game that never saw the light of day, a game when seamers were useful and late-order batsmen were rendered unnecessary by the success of those at the top. In the event the seamers achieved little, the batsmen even less, and England weren’t going to make that mistake again. Not when there were so many new ones to have a go at.
