Siraj, who was as stiff as Stokes last night, is moving smoothly as he runs in. He finished last night bowling a string of bouncers but he starts today with a fuller length but for how long after Sokes skips down the track and hammers a cover drive for four. He timed two drives sweetly yesterday in a generally clunky innings but that one suggests not only is he battling through but he is battling through into good nick. Whisking a single tom midwicket takes England to 550, earning the applause of the crowd. Dawson has a dart at one hung outside off and is beaten as it shapes away.
Bumrah starts proceedings and after Stokes blocks the first the trumpeter begins Jerusalem. Nice heavy length from Bumrah who jars the bat hard. He gets the scoreboard moving with a drive to mid-on and really stretches himself to beat Kamboj’s direct hit, Siraj raises his index finger to send Stokes on his way back to the dressing room but Stokes is confident that he made his ground. He did.
A few nice quotes from Joe Root on Sky this morning:
“It is pretty cool. When you look at the names there on that list, they are all people that, as a kid, growing up, that’s who I would try to be in the garden, on the street, on the driveway, at my local club. We’d play mini Test matches, me and my brother, and anyone else that was knocking around the local club. One day I’d try to be Ricky Ponting, the next I’d try to be Kumar Sangakkara or Brian Lara – not left-handed, but same backlift, trying to try it all out, and pretend that I was in different parts of the world scoring Test-match hundreds. Even just to be mentioned in the sentence as these guys is a bit of a pinch-yourself moment.”
