England v Ireland Test match: day one – live

Live updates from the first Test of the English summerEngland team bus briefly delayed by Just Stop Oil protestGet in touch: contact Adam by email or on Twitter

Patrick Brennan is on the same train as John Starbuck. “Excited by the selection of Tongue, I hear he bowls at quite a lick.” Licker. We’re all sorted. I reckon he’ll get the new ball shortly too – Potts was an excellent first change battering ram last year.

“Hi Adam.” Morning, Will Juba. “Glad to read your enthusiasm for the test summer ahead, including this one…like you, I can’t wait! Can we take a minute to acknowledge one of the unluckiest cricketers in recent memory; Ben Foakes. What he has to do to secure a regular place in the England test side (aside from being ‘the best keeper in the world’ – Ben Stokes – averaging pretty much bang on 40 from no.7 since Bazball started, being a counter point to the smash, crash, bang, wallop further up the order, playing several match winning innings and also just happening to be devastatingly good looking), I can only imagine I understand the logic in having all of Brook, Bairstow and Stokes (all undroppable) in the team, and even to a degree the faith in Crawley, but to omit Foakes over Crawley and to move Bairstow‘s position and give him more work after his year last year, just seems counterintuitive. Hope I’m wrong and all 4 go on to average 50 and we win every test of the summer…Thanks and keep up the good work.”

Continue reading…

About Author