23 hours ago
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After which, Andy Bull took that analysis a step further, looking at the feting and lionising of the ICC chairman and de facto BCCI boss, who was treated to some high-level fawning on the opening day.
I’ve been interested lately in the place of the WTC, and of the final, in terms of how it’s perceived in the two major cricket powers who didn’t qualify for this match, and want to reshape the fixture’s immediate future on their own terms.
Three seats down, Simon Burnton knew from the opening burst that he wanted to write about Kagiso Rabada, who passed Allan Donald on the South African top wicket-takers list yesterday while bagging five.
Want a match report? Why not start with a match report. With my own two eyes, I saw Ali Martin hew this from the stone of words with his own two hands.
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
Hello from London. The day dawns sunny here, though who knows which way it will turn – Lord’s atmospherics are often a game of snakes and ladders. So too can be Test cricket, as South Africa found yesterday: racing up the ladder of the Australian top order, sliding back thanks to Steve Smith, ascending again to bowl them out for 212, then having a serious slip of four wickets before stumps.
They didn’t fall all the way back to the bottom, but they will if David Bedingham and the captain Temba Bavuma go quickly this morning. Rung by rung it will need to be for the South Africans, at 43 for 4.
