“Got got got…need need need”. Fur wance, up 'ere, this wisnae fitba stickers getting swapped in th' schuil playground. “I’ll swap ye Wyatt fur th' twa Bryces….aye a'richt, bit ainlie if ye gimme yer Maqsood”. This summer, 'twas cricket cards that became bairns Pokemon cards, pogs, yo-yo’s 'n' Tamagotchis.

Th' Hundred. ’Twas divisive. Fur many, it wull ne'er be celebrated. An unwanted multicoloured circus, dreamed up by marketing executives. Th' arguments against wur valid. Yit, fur they oan wham th' spotlight ne'er shines, th' opportunity changed lives. Fur Scottish cricket, it changed th’ game.

It matters mare whin it's yin o' yers. Whin thare is three o' thaim, tis impossible tae ignore. In Scotland, cricket bides on the boundaries o’ society.  We needed something tae break th' echo chamber in which it currently exists. Th' secret gam thay ca' it. If ye ken, ye ken. A surprising number play it 'n' watch it,  bit th' unconverted wull barely be conscious o' cricket’s existence. Bit, whin th' auld enemy ur getting shown up at thair ain gam, by some o' oor ain lassies, that wull git th’ mainstream listening. Noo th’ natives want tae ken.

Twa travelled tae th’ Midlands, yin ventured even further, tae the big smoke. Three lassies headed sooth tae play alongside, ’n’ compete wi’, th’ warld’s finest. A' three Scots, a' three playing a gam yer Da keeps insisting is “ainlie fur they Sassenach folk”, bit a' three, world class. Maist importantly, a’ three are oors; Sarah Bryce, Kathryn Bryce and Abtaha Maqsood.

Whipping aff th' bails wi' her feathery light glove wirk wis junior Bryce, Sarah.  Th' maist dismissals fae a keeper in th' tournament helped leid her team tae the trophy.  Her sister, oor country captain, barely heard o' at hame before now, shered th' freish baw wae worldwide superstar Katherine Brunt. Always bowling ticht lines wi' her devilish swing.

Th' real star though wis Maqsood wi' her majestic twist 'n' turn. A skill chiselled oot amongst th' dreich backdrop o' sooth Glesgae. This wis th' wan that hud bairns dreaming.  A bold lassie, honing her craft amongst th' laddies 'n' stane brick tenements. Her story yin o' inspiration, perspiration 'n' perseverance. It lit up th' nationals 'n' th' internationals, reaching fae th' wast o Scotland o’er tae Pakistan 'n' India.

Yin day bowling tae th' familie in th' local council pairk, th' next she’s bowling fur 20,000 cheering fans. Flighting her leggies tae Van Niekirk, Rodrigues, Dunkley 'n' Matthews. Fur a Scot, playing a Sassenach game, 'twas an unthinkable progression. Th' toon o' th' bull ring wis th' perfect landing spot; Birmingham bein' a toon that seeks tae gie opportunity whaur it kin nae easily be found. This wasn’t simply an opportunity fur yin lassie, this wis opportunity fur th' bairns o' a hail nation.

Three o’ oors, thriving amongst a' o' thaim

Kathryn Bryce, Sarah Bryce, Abtaha Maqsood……got got got.

The County Championship continuously revolves. Round and round and round it goes. Players come, and players go. Some stay for seemingly infinite orbits, whereas others jump on and off during a single rotation. Within this mystical world, and its myriad players, come storylines that bewitch.

The comfort of the grizzled old pro going at it once again; the mystique of the overseas signing gearing up for a Test series; the debut of the prodigy that you’ve tracked through the age grades; or the redemption dance of a previously discarded international. But what grabs us like no other, and draws us through the gates to sit huddled beneath those grey skies, is the young breakthrough player making a bolt for the Test squad.

This is an early-season phenomenon only. The worse the Test team is performing, the more excited we become at early Championship form. The chance we’ve uncovered someone who can save the summer. Once the mainstream chattering starts, the case picks up pace and turns into an unstoppable avalanche. And we county devotees love it. Another chance to point to the quality of The Championship and say it is more than good enough. Another tick in the constant battle to justify relevance.

This year’s figurine is Matty Potts. Squint slightly from the Don Robson Pavilion, and you may indeed see Action Man in Potts chiselled jaw and square shoulders. An identikit Northern fast bowler of vintage dreams. He runs in hard and bowls fast.

By being the leading wicket taker across both divisions to date, he made himself impossible to ignore for International selection. His 35 wickets (at 18.57) are followed immediately, but not that closely, by Toby Roland-Jones, Craig Overton, Keith Barker, Mohammed Abbas and Hasaan Ali. That tells its own story.

Those in attendance at The Riverside for Potts last game before the squad announcement were keenly aware that they may be the last to witness the man-child before nationwide awareness arrived. There was a buzz at the start of each of his spells. Toilet breaks were taken on the overs which alternated his. The new England captain stood conspicuously under a sun hat at mid-off, but barely an eye was cast in his direction.

This is the allure of the breakthrough player. The excitement that surrounds them is contagious. We want to witness them before they “make it”. To say that we knew about them before most others. To say they are one of ours.

But herein lies the rub; after all that excitement, they won’t be one of ours for long.

After winning the game for Durham with seven second innings wickets, Potts spoke of his excitement to play at Lords the following week against Middlesex. He spoke of wanting to continue that form for the rest of the season, of just wanting to continue to take wickets for Durham and of building on that first win of The Championship. Three days later, the Test squad was announced, and Potts name was there. Yet, on the Durham teamsheet for Lords the following day, his name was missing. Undoubtedly at the request of the ECB, he was consigned to carry drinks for the next four days.

This is the contradiction of county cricket. Strive to win as many matches as possible with local lads, strive to produce players of international quality and strive to bring excitement to your supporters; then rarely see those players play for you again.

For Durham, this conflicting duality perhaps stings a little more. After all, the ultimate excitement of Potts performances for the team’s supporters was the opportunity to lift them towards promotion. They are still scrambling to escape from Division 2 as a result of the draconian penalty handed down in 2016; relegation, 48 point deduction for the next Championship season and removal of The Riverside’s Test status.

This isn’t to downplay the £3.8million bailout the ECB provided. But, it should be remembered that the required investment to reach such status had previously been encouraged, and almost certainly required, by the very same body who had to bail them out.

There is a cruel irony in the fact that the players developed by the county to overcome the ECB’s cruel punishment, won’t be available for the majority of the remainder of the season. Now, they are required to perform on behalf of the ECB.

And what thanks to the county who developed them? Of the three Durham players selected in the recent squad, only Ben Stokes holds a central contact. There may be some monetary compensation, however not only does the county have to pay the salary of the player, but more importantly, they now have to go without their services in a promotion chase.

There are posters around The Riverside advertising Durham’s thirty-year celebration of first-class status. They are already weatherbeaten and faded as if reflective of the county’s recent history. Amongst the faces on the discoloured cardboard are Graham Onions, Paul Collingwood, Scott Borthwick, Mark Wood and Ben Stokes. All local lads, all proudly North Eastern and all, at some point, siphoned off to play for their country.

They are still ours, but they now just belong to more of us.

For the County Cricket fan, the excitement of the breakthrough bolter is always fleeting. Maybe that is why we love it so much. Like a shot of adrenaline, the quick high is often followed by a much sharper low, as they disappear from view.

No one is born a maverick. It is something placed on an individual over time. It is not self-determined but instead hung around someone's neck without their approval. Everyone looks at the maverick and wants to be them, but that is without knowing the burden they often carry. 

See, the maverick gives up their life to live as one, and everyone wants a piece. There is something within the maverick that draws us in - the joy, the mastery, the triumph or t

he way they deal with struggle - and we see a part of ourselves within them, or at least what we want to be. We love the way they make us feel. We love what they make us feel. And so we feel intimately close to them, and as such feel we have the right to call them by first name; Shane, Seve or Diego. 

To lump mavericks together goes against the very essence of the uniqueness that gives the title such meaning. But Shane Warne was to cricket, what Seve Ballesteros was to golf or Diego Maradona to football. All individuals who transcended the sport that they played to bring appreciation, perhaps even hero worship, from all those who watched, and many who didn’t. 

On Shane Warne’s death, the usual cliches appeared. How he was larger than life, how it seemed he would live forever, how he lit up a room or of how he could bend matches to his will. And this is the folly of the cliche, because when they actually hold true, their previous placing on the underserving, means the words themselves are worthless. Yet, for Warne, those words have a literal meaning. They describe Shane; they describe a maverick.  

Mystique in the maverick comes with their roots. Each of Shane Warne, Seve Ballesteros and Diego Maradona produced pride within the places they grew up. Each place forever providing a grounding for what was to come; the Melbourne superb of Upper Gully, the farming village of Pedreña in northern Spain, and the shantytown of Villa Fiorito to the south of Buenos Aires. Nothing is given easily to the maverick. Everything has been earned. Childhoods have been spent sourcing anything they can to play the sport they love. Time is spent exploring all the different ways in which they can command a ball. There is no learning by the book; only learning by feel. Using the land around them. Learning, learning and learning. Working, working and working.

When the maverick first appears before our eyes we see only what they do in that instant. The thousands of hours before that moment have gone unseen. Too often the maverick is reduced to possessing incomprehensible “god-given talent”. They do of course have this, but in far greater abundance is the uncompromising graft undertaken to allow them to appear before us. 

When Shane Warne floored the jaws of the cricketing world at Old Trafford in 1993, by flooring the joules of Mike Gatting, that was the result of hours of failure, exploration, more failure, invention, even more failure and a shit tonne of repetition. That ball didn’t appear from thin air. There was no luck. Warne had worked, and worked, and worked so that when the time arrived, he could execute. 

The trick of maverickery is in making the impossible look effortless. And then doing it over, and over, and over again. 

This is where the genius of Shane, Seve and Diego came alive. Each seemingly able to bend the primary tool of their trade to their will. Balls would be whipped around legs, around trees and around outstretched arms from impossible angles. 

They were tricksters, who delighted in pulling the wool over our eyes. Miracles would be performed with a smirk and a wink. Each always landing on the right side of cheeky, rather than cruel. 

When Seve Ballesteros wildly drove his tee shot into the car park with three holes to go and leading the 1979 Open Championship, he didn’t play safe. He could have played out sideways, he could have settled for a playoff, or he could have tried to lay up. But that is not the maverick. With a smirk and a wink, he clipped a wedge to the heart of the green and walked off with a birdie. For all the risk of the maverick, there is never the fear of failure.

And then there was the joy. The joy with which each second of performance would be undertaken. To do the things each did could only have been done by playing with joy. To attempt the things each attempted could only be done by playing with joy. A childlike excitement at the position they found themselves in.

It was Shane jumping up and down on the balcony, shaking his hips and a stump from side to side, before sinking a stubby; it was Seve repeatedly punching the air while bouncing up and down after holing a putt, with an unwipeable grin to the gallery; it was Diego whistling and singing to Opus’ Live is Life, while nonchalantly warming up by juggling a ball from head to shoulder to knee and finally to foot, then doing it all over again. 

That delightfully infectious joy draws us close to the maverick. We plead with the maverick to draw us away from our dreary day-to-day life by bringing joy to all they do. Soon, we start to rely on them. We turn up, or switch on, with the expectation that they will remove us from reality. Remove us from our dreary reality. They must provide us with joy. Their life no longer belongs to them. They live to please us now. And that is the burden the maverick must live with.

“Genio, genio, genio….gooooooooal…..dios santo…gooaaaallllazooo…Diegoal…esto me hace llorar”

When Diego Maradona slalomed through the entire England team to take Argentina towards an eventual World Cup win in 1986, the commentator Victor Hugo Morales captured the very essence of the maverick. He screamed of Maradona’s genius, he thanked the great almighty and burst into uncontrollable tears. The maverick can do things that lift us out of everyday life. They remove our souls from our bodies so that we have no control over how we respond to them. They draw us close.

Perhaps the maverick can on occasion fly too close to the sun. While Maradona often flew too close to it, Warne skirted it. Regularly having his wings clipped but managing to avoid melting them. However, the allure of the maverick is great enough to attract our endless forgiveness. The pressure we force them to live under is unsurvivable, and so eternal forgiveness is the least we can offer. 

The mere mention of the maverick often draws a specific image to our minds. Shane, Seve and Diego each have iconic moments which spring instantly to mind. A moment that identifies them to us. A moment that ties them to us. But the beauty is that the maverick is always so much more than a single moment. They are compilations of highlight after highlight, play after play and moment after moment. Our mind flicks through each like a carousel projecting slides against a wall. The footage may become grainier over time, flickering as we squint to recall it, but the way they made us feel will endure. 

There is one final fibre that runs through the maverick. More important than the mystique, more important than the hard work, more important than the trickery and more important than the joy; the maverick must always appear invincible, even when we know that to be simply impossible. 

“To be the next big thing in Pakistan is an exciting place to be.  To be the next big thing in Pakistan is also the loneliest place to be”

Osman Samiuddin writing to Naseem Shah

The Test match didn’t have much to differentiate it from the previous two thousand, three hundred and eighty-three before it. A dusky golden hour glow had settled across Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, as the game meandered towards the close of play on day three. Pakistan were comfortably ahead and looking to bowl Bangladesh out for a second time.

With the light beginning to fade, Azhar Ali tossed the ball to sixteen-year-old prodigy Naseem Shah. Elite sportspeople of such a sickeningly young age often look older than their years. Already decades into their career, the incessant repetition of one specific action seems to present itself in bodily appearance. Grizzled eyes, sculpted bodies and knowing looks. All while still being a teenager. Shah, however, very much looked his age. The babiest of faces, topped with a high-school haircut. The unabashed grin across his face was only ever broken with a youthful look of intense concentration. 

He opened this particular spell by bowling out a maiden. Threatening but uneventful. 

That Shah appeared so young felt misleading. He’d been forced to grow up fast. Less than three months earlier - while on his debut tour to Australia - his mother passed away. Days later, and unable to fly home for the funeral, he became the youngest Test cricketer to play against Australia. An unplayable delivery angled into David Warner brought a first Test wicket.

Now ten balls into his spell, and coming round the wicket to Nazmul Hossain, Shah whipped a delivery well outside off stump. The ball pitched on a good length and suddenly veered violently inwards, honing in on the batter’s shins. Hossain stuck his pads in the way. Initially given not out, the ball was instead shown to be annihilating leg stump. Victim number one.

Mainstream arrival came just after Australia, and alongside joyous celebrations of a long-awaited homecoming Test for his country. The occasion forever to be marked, as Shah became the ninth youngest player to take a five-wicket haul in Test cricket. To even mention Pakistan’s love for fast bowling feels cliched. The nation’s thirst had already been quenched with the bombastic arrival of tall left-arm quick Shaheen Shah Afridi. A second firebrand quick following so soon meant lazy comparisons to Shoaib Akhtar and Waqar Younis were hard to resist. 

Two minutes after the Hossain dismissal Shah returned to his mark. His understated scurry to the crease, elbows tucked tightly in, directly contrasting with the catapulting arm speed which delivered the ball. This time it was full. Again the ball dove inwards, and again the batter sticks his pad in the way. But, this time, there is no doubt. Shah doesn’t turn around. Instead, barely breaking stride, he mirrors his delivery, running off sharply in the opposite direction. Arms stretched out wide, as the wind flutters over the green and gold trim on his whites; preparing for take-off. Victim number two.

 The Rawalpindi scoreboard informed everyone of something they already knew. Naseem Shah was “on a hat-trick”. An image to precede a fortunate event. Sometimes seismic events feel inevitable. It’s easy to say in hindsight, and so often we build ourselves up for something monumental to happen, only for things to fall flat. But on those rare occasions when they do happen, we can say we knew it was going to happen. Amor fati.

The final delivery of Shah’s second over bore no resemblance to any before it. This time he pounded over the wicket. This time the ball would barely deviate, and this time it pitched smack bang on Mahmadullah’s crease, around fifth stump. It wasn’t the perfect delivery. Perhaps the rivers of adrenaline had caused Shah to overshoot his target. However, there was one crucial similarity to his previous deliveries, it again brought a wicket.  

The new batsmen, perhaps foolishly looking to put the kid in his place, looked to drive through the covers. The bat, beaten for pace, could only guide the ball to the beaming Haris Rauf at first slip. And again he was off, Shah’s arms flailing uncontrollably as he looked for open grass to run into, before being quickly swallowed up by his teammates. The perfect result, to an imperfect delivery.Victim number three.

A prince with the world at his feet.

Doing something so outer-worldly at such a young always comes with a catch. Your future is no longer yours to own. What you should do is decided for you. Inevitably it is unrealistic, inevitably it is unachievable and inevitably you will be questioned. And so to Osman Samiuddin’s open letter to Naseem Shah, written days after the hat-trick. Samiuddin knew what was coming. He knew the stratospheric expectations now sitting on Shah. To reread the words is to glimpse into the future, but now have the ability to view it as the past.  

In the three years following the hat trick, the words written in the letter feel prescient. By the end of 2020, Shah was struggling with injury niggles. There were growing pains as the boy developed into a man, while still being expected to present as a fully formed superstar. There were fitness concerns, form concerns and national team squad exclusions. All culminating in the loss of his Pakistan central contract for 2021/22. This for a boy-man who only turned nineteen days ago. Nobody stays young for long. Victim number four. 

The batter is crouched on the boundary rope. A coiled jack in the box, ready to explode on instruction. A ball of fear, excitement, awe, anxiety and joy. The camera closes in. It focuses not on the limbs or tools of his trade, but on his eyes. Peering deep into his eyes; attempting to examine what's beyond. For Will Pucovski, everything has led to this moment; his Test debut.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pucovski is 23 and has made it. Only four hundred and fifty-nine others have done this before him. He is the four hundred and sixtieth baggy green. 460, now his number, and only his. This is a success story. If he never plays another Test or scores another Test run, he is still a success story. He has managed.

Pucovski has overcome a struggle that many do not. A spectre has been living inside him, exacerbated by nine frightening concussions. This struggle inhabits many of us. It strangles until there is struggle no more. It binds strangers in an unwanted club. The black dog. Pucovski, like so many of us, knows it isn’t often conquered. It’s simply managed.

Yet, he took control. He removed himself from selection. The sacrifice of a lifelong dream is insignificant compared to continuing to live. The decision had real jeopardy. Will this moment arrive again? Every minute, awake or dreaming, had built towards it, only to turn it away at the last.

Removing himself for selection with a Test debut imminent was potentially fatal. Continuing without acting could have proved the same. Instead, it’s inspirational. 

He’s stood in the same spot as so many of us. He’s felt the pain. Open up or bottle it up? Do they understand or feign sympathy? Will you be supported or subtly moved on?

Through the denial; the terror; the begging for mercy; the longing for an end; the unpredictability; the resignation; the rejection of help; the slow acceptance and the pleading for help. It’s never conquered, only ever managed.

Depression is the serial killer. Fear of the consequences in acknowledging it inhibit so many from accepting its existence; eventually it simply kills them. A cricketer, who has spent most of his life working towards one single dream, then refusing its arrival in exchange for life, is revolutionary. It saves lives. The modern role model.

Amongst the biosecure bubbles, player empowerment and agency is critical. Money making has no consideration of health after all. Many followed Pucovski’s lead over the following months, all with their own reason. They won’t be the last; each seeking to manage. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Will Pucovski knew what was coming. It arrived within a few balls. A sizzling bouncer delivered towards his temple. The bowler gives a sympathetic, but unapologetic look. A flurry of limbs meets the ball at the batter's end, as he ducks and dives to avoid cataclysmic contact with the head.

The ball locates a small bit of upturned willow and runs off to the boundary.

It wasn’t played well. Similar balls would be arriving shortly, but the first was survived; simply managed.

Number four hundred and sixty made 62. It was his least significant contribution of the day.

There is a little bit of sadomasochism in all of us. The feeling that something is going to do us harm, but doing it anyway. That feeling of knowing we should look away, but simply can’t. We often find pleasure in the most excruciating of ways. A morbid curiosity which trumps all reason. 

My festive viewing this year has largely been twofold. Catching the last carriage on the Succession bandwagon, by watching a few episodes each evening in the bleak midwinter hours before the Ashes begins. Each drama tapping sweetly into those heavy sadomasochistic desires; I’m yet to avert my eyes.  

Succession follows the owners of Waystar Royco, a global media conglomerate, owned by the Roy family. Essentially, the family weasel their way around and fuck over everyone in their path, including each other. It’s a simple concept with all the hallmarks of right-winger families: an egocentric ruthless patriarch, unapologetic nepotism, copious amounts of snakery and extreme grubbiness. It is an utter shit show.

Which brings us neatly to an England team where the shit show is, arguably, very much literal. An Ashes demise that has arrived so swiftly I’m only halfway through Succession’s thirty episodes. HBO may be renowned for lengthy TV episodes, but that feels fairly damning. The series outcome almost inevitable from the moment Mitchell Starc decapitated Rory Burns leg stump. But the journey to get to that conclusion has been savagely watchable. So delightfully painful it should have been viewed through the slot of a peep box.

There was an attempt to rescue disaster pre-Boxing Day. The team’s hierarchy deciding now was the time to play the angry men. A heated meeting with “candid views from senior players” was had. Oh no, not candid views, will someone please think of the children? There was a forced rewatch of the meekly lost wickets from the Adelaide Test. An instruction that things needed to change and a warning that a repeat was inconceivable. Batters told bowlers to pitch it up; bowlers told batters to hit the ball. The situation was critical.

‘Tern Haven’, my next episode of Succession, spat out unexpected synchronicity. Early in the episode, Logan Roy calls an impromptu family meeting. Waystar Royco is attempting the delicate purchase of one of their main competitors, owned by the more liberal Pierce family. However, before selling, the Pierce family would like to vet the Roy family at their home, Tern Haven. It is a cataclysmic disaster. Sensing a deal slipping away, Logan pulls the family together for a pep talk. Instructions are dished out, behaviour is rebuked and everyone is told to do their job. The situation was critical.

What followed provided intense pleasure. Excruciating, hilarious, infuriating, awkward, eye-watering, pleasure. 

The Roy family depart their meeting and do the exact opposite of what they've been instructed. England bat first and get rolled sharply, with an innings ripe in laughable dismissals.

The balls-up of each being so contrary to company orders, it has us, mere peasants, licking our lips. More, more, more cry we at the elite self-sabotage.

Eldest sibling Connor commences proceedings by having a fractious disagreement with a Pierce family member over politics. Shiv Roy takes up the baton, suggesting that following five years to complete a second PhD, Mark Pierce now won’t need to spend the 12 seconds it would take to look the same thing up on Wikipedia. 

Haseeb Hameed tickles a passing Pat Cummins peach to Carey. The scratchy Zac Crawley is squared up by the same man, and David Malan completes the Aussie captain’s triplex, when he stabs a ball to reformed attack dog David Warner. Gilly, Warney, June, AB and Skull are feverishly gleeful.

An evening dinner is the catalyst for Logan’s wife to publicly pull him up for the way he treats her, his son-in-law to refer to himself as a “right-wing ogre” and his daughter to prematurely announce she will be succeeding him on his demise. For the mignardises, second son Kendall gets coked up with a fellow recovering addict and threatens to fly a helicopter, before third son Roman suggests to his girlfriend that a touch of the old necrophilia may solve his inability to have sex.  

As he reaches another fifty, Root’s back can carry no more, and he dangles the bat at an unthreatening close-the-over ball from Mitchell Starc. He punches his bat and yells at the ground in frustration. Ben Stokes bizarrely attempts to carve a ball over the cordon, but slaps it straight to backward point. Five balls before dinner, Jos Buttler provides the pièce de résistance for the sadomasochist. He is on 3. England are 128 for 5. He dances down the pitch and uppercuts the ball straight to a fielder twiddling his thumbs in the vast expanse of MCG greenery.  England are cooked for 185 and the game is gone.

Logan eventually receives the news that, despite the carnage, a deal can happen. The similarities between the Roy family and the England cricket team clearly run deeper than a questionable attitude to racism, but herein lies the one large difference. The Roy family are winners; this England Test team are born losers.

Sure the comparisons can be gimmicky, but sometimes they simply write themselves. What even is a tern you ask? It’s a bird that perennially nosedives. Oh, and the episode closes as one of the main protagonists literally shits the bed. 

The “It Gets Good” theory was coined by TV critic Alan Sepinwall. Essentially these are TV shows you recommend to friends as being slow starters, but are worth persevering with - “it takes a while to get going”, “it’s a slow burn but the payoff is worth it” or “it gets really good from episode six”. Eventually, TV shows started playing on this expectation and baking it into how they develop a show. 

However, the problem, as Sepinwall now sees it, is that people don’t have the time to invest where they once did in shows which may, or may not, get better. The TV space is so saturated that there is barely room to breathe. Quite simply there isn’t enough time in a day for all to survive. Adapt or die. Eventually, people will just turn off. Tom Harrison, are you watching?

“Whit's fur ye'll no go by ye”, or so Scottish boomers like to tell you. In times of strife or uncertainty, this is their go-to mantra. Whatever happens, happens. Just accept your lot and get on with it. Or, read differently, a certain level of skill and hard work will bring what you deserve. For the last few years, Scottish cricket would be forgiven for blasting that to pieces. But, finally, they just might be getting what they deserve; it’s been a long time coming.

As Mark Watt drove Scotland’s final ball of the World Cup for a single, the country was getting battered. The wind was howling, the rain was torrential, daylight hours were few and the dark hours many. Yet, the bubble the players were about to burst had begun at home, during the long straggly tail end of a domestic season. A solid eight weeks had passed. It began with a worst-case scenario of fifteen games and best case of twenty-two. This all off the back of two games in twenty months. From one extreme to the next. None of the players would have seen the like.

Perhaps the uniqueness was the perfect tonic. A freshness. A long barrier or a line in the sand to move on from the injustices and frustrations of recent years. Things quickly felt different.

Zimbabwe were defeated at The Grange. The three-match series was lost, but each match so easily may have been won. Although being T20, could also easily have been lost. Regardless, it was all taken in stride. Beating a full-member nation almost taken for granted. Heady days indeed. In bemoaning a missed opportunity at a series win, the players and staff perhaps gave an unintended glimpse into internal expectations.

Then came the purple. That kaleidoscopic smattering of a Dulux purple colour chart. If you're planning on going to the big dance, you best have your finery looked out. It all felt very fresh, very clean and very much like Scotland were heading to UAE to make waves, not simply numbers. The fact it was the result of a kids colouring competition made the feel-good even stronger. This was a team to get behind.

The fresh feel was complete with transformation into some unbeatable juggernaut on touchdown in Oman and the Emirati. Three vital CWC League 2 wins on the spin were followed by four wins in five warm-ups. Sure, warm-ups mean very little, but for a team who had played three T20s in over two years, it was immensely encouraging.

And so to the real question. What was to be success?

For the associate, it’s often not as straightforward as simply winning. Breakthrough - whatever that means- is real success. You’re constantly hunting for it. Mainstream breakthrough at home, international breakthrough within the sport and opportunity breakthrough for players.

It is a cruel and ruthless spot. The ultimate curse of associate status is that opportunity so often lies outwith your control. The time of day games are played at dictates if casual eyes will be cast. The weather can wash away an opportunity in a flash. The cricketing overlords can create or break an opportunity based on whether they are willing to play you.

So, a global tournament provides the kind of opportunity which must be grasped. The jeopardy wrapped up in each game goes beyond simply winning. For players who have to spend their downtime studying, setting up coaching schools and being delivery men, it feels grossly unjust that so much rides on something to which they can’t devote their full-time. The requirement to spend eight weeks away from home may sound like a worthwhile sacrifice to play international sport, but that doesn’t tell you just what that takes from a person. The cost in relationships, the cost in careers and the cost to your health. All for the most unwarranted of pressure. This is meant to be fun.

Ultimately though the objective boiled down to the only possibly controllable. Nobody quite wanted to say it, but even unspoken it was loud and clear; qualification for the Super 12 was a must.

Side objectives would fall into place if the ultimate was achieved; more mainstream exposure back home, more franchise opportunities for players, more money for players and more prize money for Cricket Scotland. A simple win, win, win, win.

Ask and you shall receive.

Mahmudullah sat patiently, rested his head on his hand and stroked his chin. The explanation he was trying hard to articulate came for him. Flower of Scotland came echoing out the Scottish changing room. The bold and brash breakthrough had come earlier than anticipated. The clip was infectious, mutating from phone to phone.

Three days later, and 5,048 miles west, I stood playing keepy-uppy with a mate pre five-a-side. This particular mate has been very vocal in his utter disdain for cricket. He has used words that cannot be repeated about people who choose to play it. Disdain tends to reach fever pitch in Scotland around August when the football and cricket season overlap. The overlap is quite literal for the local council, as football pitches get slapped on top of cricket pitches. You’ve not lived until you reverse sweep a ball through a six-yard box. Today though, all he wants to talk is net-run-rate, where Bangladesh is ranked and Scotland’s “utter skelping” of Papa New Guinea. He informs me that he’s made sure Friday is working from home day. Breakthrough.

The seven wins in eight were sharply extended to ten wins in eleven. Ultimate objective achieved in style. In hindsight, it felt almost a formality, why all the anxiety and existential pre-tournament words? Scotland channelled the full members' treatment of qualification tournaments, all dealt with via a dismissive flick of the hand.

But that would be a disservice to just how well Scotland played and how spot-on their preparation had been. Despite the limited cricket the players had played for the previous two years. It was like being told you had final exams in eighteen months but were only allowed to study for the final two weeks. They had crammed day and night but passed with distinction.

Aiming to peak at a certain point provides difficulty once you reach that peak. Where do you go after focussing all your energy on one goal? The boys were cooked. Judging by the colour on some of them, almost literally. The dusty, dry heat and pressure of such an intense bubble must play its part. There were still positive performances against New Zealand and Pakistan, despite being outclassed by India and Afghanistan, the only real disappointment came against a vivacious Namibian team. No shame. Importantly, there was breakthrough.

There is hope moving forward. Competing at such a high level was done largely without match-winning batting. Outside Ritchie Berrington, and finisher Leask, the batters didn’t strike. If the batting can marry up with the bowling consistently then, even more, is to come. Mark Watt had more words written about him in two weeks than in his previous twenty-five years on the planet. He made various writers Teams of the Super 12 and ended up with a T10 gig playing alongside Moeen Ali and Imran Tahir. Breakthrough.

The world is grubby and money matters, that’s capitalism baby. The game is underfunded in Scotland and only winning games can change that, unfortunately, only money can change the game. It comes directly in prize money, then indirectly with increased exposure. The vultures want a slice. At least the vultures are starting to circle, instead of flying East or South.

The pressure on the Scottish players to perform at a world-class level, despite not being full time, is incredible. To be so conscious of how your performance can directly affect the future of the game in the country is surely inhibiting. But, for this squad, it never became so. The resulting $190,000 was enormous. Word went around that the BCCI earns the same in 14 overs of the IPL that Cricket Scotland does in a year. There is no doubt Scotland earned this payday.

Two weeks later and I’m back at five-a-side. Scotland has put up a fight against New Zealand and my mate can’t get enough. There is nothing that gets the general Scottish populous on side more than a fight. He wants to know who this Mark Watt is, why do so few teams play in a World Cup, does every player play every format, and how can some players bowl and bat. Then, he delivers his closing line. So when are we getting a Test team? No longer is it they; now it’s we. Breakthrough.

Is there an international cricket ground as picturesque as The Grange? On a mild autumnal afternoon, when most grounds have slipped into hibernation, it remains a pleasure to embed yourself within its walls. There is a cosiness to watching international cricket in the heart of Scotland’s capital city. The ground feels like it wraps you in a deep embrace, walls surrounding you on all sides. The trees scattered just beyond the boundary rope and those towering outside the ground are peppered with leaves of browns and dark orange. Peak outdoor hygge.

On occasion, that cosiness can be misconstrued for insularity. Viewed from the outside, the walls can appear a separator, rather than a comforter. Curious heads frequently appear above the wall. For a reasonably large price they could join in, yet it feels too large a price to encourage the uninitiated. The great dichotomy at the heart of associate cricket; making ends meet while relentless encouraging inclusivity.

For the already converted, there is something magical about still persevering with cricket after the leaves have started to fall. Just when you are mourning its departure, it clings on for another few weeks. That perseverance fits neatly with days like today. There is a particular pride from those with the resolve required to follow Scottish cricket.

A resolve echoed by those on the field. Scotland have searched high and low for opponents over the last twenty-four months. A two-year hiatus, broken only briefly for a pair of ODIs in May against the Netherlands. Today’s visit of Zimbabwe most welcome for those in need of international game time, but also those taking care of the bottom line.

Captain Kyle Coetzer’s pre-match proclamation of a desire to play a positive and exciting brand of cricket was music to the ears of those both on and off the field. A winning toss and the opportunity to bat first providing an immediate test of that mantra.

Initial results were not promising. Four of the top five perishing quickly and quietly for single-digit scores. If Scotland’s top order looked rusty.

Zimbabwe looked every bit like a team motoring straight off eight matches in Ireland. Tight bowling and sharp fielding limiting any easy initial scoring.

The bold and brash cricket did eventually arrive with Richie Berrington and Matthew Cross. Although in truth, it largely came from the former. A partnership of 45 lifting the hosts towards a more respectable total. From there, Leask and Sharif managed to hang in the middle with Berrington, while allowing him to farm the strike. Berrington’s final tally of 82, boosted by copious crisp straight drives, making up well over half his team’s total. Scotland closed on a just about defendable 141 from their 20 overs.

The anticipated late afternoon chill didn’t arrive, instead a script flipping clearing of the clouds providing a welcome arrival of warmth.

What had originally appeared a potentially straightforward chase took an early twist. On the first ball of Zimbabwe’s response, Safyaan Sharif extracted immediate lift out of the pitch with a sizzling delivery, which clipped a flailing bat and carried to wicketkeeper Cross.

The ebb and flow nature of the follow-up innings was reinforced with Sharif and Ali Evans hostile opening salvo. The duo bowling impressively in tandem to ensure a limited Zimbabwe riposte.

Consolidation and inevitable acceleration did arrive from the visitors in the middle overs. Captain Ervine and the experience of Sean Williams bringing a calmness to an innings which could have spiralled sharply out of control.

However, there was a lesson to be gleaned from Scotland’s second innings performance. The mind instantly flicks to batting when seeking positive cricket. Yet Coetzer’s captaincy, in combination with his team’s fielding and bowling, was intensely bold, positive and tremendously effective. The importance of each element becomes increasingly important the shorter the format becomes, and so it proved today.

With the impressive Milton Shumba’s 45 not out catapulting his team towards victory, Sharif returned to provide team-mate Berrington with some player of the match competition. In the final three overs, he completed a run-out, took three wickets and held a vital catch deep on the square leg boundary. The catch off Chris Sole’s bowling all but ensuring victory. Six and lose; catch and win.

It completed a vital eight-run win for the hosts on their return to action. The under-pressure game time could prove priceless in the exciting challenges to come, as Scotland bubble up for an intense two months in various Gulf states.

When asked about where his contribution ranked on a personal level, Sharif began rolling out the stock answer of side before self. The remaining words failed to rattle off easily and a smile spread across his face as he chuckled “yeah....it was quite a good day actually!”.

Three years ago, Scotland defeated the world champions in waiting at The Grange. It was meant to be cricket’s game changing moment in a country previously uneasy at embracing something so intrinsically linked to the Auld Enemy. A washed-out summer two years ago, and a pandemically wiped out summer last year, has largely robbed that opportunity. So, a good day is the very least that The Grange deserves....actually.

There had never been a king pair in a Lords Test. You wonder whether Haseeb Hameed thought of this as he heard the stomach-churning splintering of stumps behind him. This was Greek tragedy being played out in front of our eyes. 

So rare is the king pair that there have only been 22 in the history of Test cricket. Many an individual has found themselves halfway there, but rarely is the unwanted feat realised. 

Haseeb Hameed had a king pair lingering over him for four days and three nights. For seventy hours between Friday and Monday, he floated in cricketing purgatory. Quack quack quack round in his head like some malfunctioning fairground ride. The harder you try to keep thought out, the more persistent it becomes. Not just fleeting back of the head thoughts these ones, real front and centre all-consuming stuff. Just how can you possibly function as a human, let alone a professional athlete, under such duress?

With all those thoughts running around in his head, Hameed had to sit and watch Joe Root tally up run after run after run, Jonny Bairstow dig in and England manage a narrow first-innings lead. All the while contemplating a personal contribution of nil. 

He was then expected to spend another day fully concentrated on limiting India’s riposte. For the majority of time, you could switch off. Generally in the field, you are not required. Except you can’t ever really switch off. When that catch, run-out chance or run-saving opportunity comes, you better be alive. 

Surely though his mind wandered. Surely he thought of where he had been, where he had gone and where he was now. Any human would.

Act One in the career of Hameed is well versed. He arrived on the international scene with a maturity unashamedly in contrast to his cheeky boyish looks. Shortly cropped hair complete with bold Boltonian accent. The lad was quickly christened the future by Virat Kohli. English fans and media were head over heels. 

But, as Pulp once sang, something changed. 

The descent was as sharp as the arrival. The cause of the fall remains a mystery; the extent of it anything but. An unexplainable drop to single figure average eventually resulted in a drop to 2nd XI county cricket. The boy wonder scrapping it out with the rest of them for mere cricketing survival. 

A move became inevitable. Trent Bridge was the prime sport for revival. And so it has been. Not slamming the door down but slowly and expertly picking the lock. Hameed has earned his return in the grand manner, with weighty red-ball runs. Not a few big boisterous headline-making innings, but consistent top-order runs.  

“Cricket is fun again” is what he told George Dobell after his first season at Nottinghamshire. This is where we, as fans or media, perhaps fall short. For all the introspection and analysis of what caused the fall, all Hameed really desired was the game to be fun again. And cricket is a game. For those who play it and watch it, the modus operandi should be fun. Of course, it is more fun when you are winning, but even when you are not, a certain perspective needs to be maintained. 

Which brings us back round to Lords and Hameed’s four days of thought. You can’t imagine those days were filled with much fun. The long days pondering in the changing room or patrolling the outfield. There was perhaps the odd distraction of a stint under the lid at short leg or silly point to keep him in the battle, but largely solitary thought throughout. What a toll it must take. 

Paul Parker won a solitary cap for England in the 1981 Ashes. He spoke recently on the One Test Wonders podcast of the mental degradation caused by a first-innings duck. With no possibility of releasing the nerves, the potential pressure of recording “a pair” ate him up between innings. “By the time I arrived at the crease for my second innings I was mentally exhausted”. Parker spoke of a feeling of “exhilaration” as a streaky inside edge brought runs. Forget the king pair, even the possibility of a pair will turn you inside out. 

As Rory Burns and Dom Sibley shuffled out to meet their fate, we glimpse a straight-faced Hameed. His chair is slightly removed from the balcony doors as if the safety of the changing room comforts him. Focused? Anxious? Scared? Only he, if anyone, will truly know. The shortly cropped boyish hair now dangling towards his shoulders, complete with a bushy beard to match. The look of someone who disappears for a while and returns to tell you he has “seen things”. No longer a boy. The end is in sight. No more waiting, no more wondering, no more purgatory. 

He doesn’t need to wait long. Of course, he doesn’t, this is England. Siraj - the bringing of Hameed’s first innings doom - sizzles one past his outside edge first ball, but it’s survived. Exhilaration. The mind can finally breathe. Maybe this could still be fun?

To even return to the crease must take a strength of courage which clearly marks these individuals as elite. Hameed’s innings doesn’t move beyond single digits but the worst-case scenario has at least been avoided. He can move on. 

Act Two for Haseeb Hameed can begin. Is there a player for whom success is desired more than him? Five years ago, England thought they had a decade long incumbent. There is a chance they still do. More importantly for Hameed, the follow-up act must contain one thing above all others, fun. 

A Katherine Brunt send-off is hard to miss. This was no different as she charged down the pitch in celebration, raising her fingers to her lips. This one perhaps had a little extra on it. As Shafali Verma dragged herself off she knew the series was likely lost. On a personal level, Verma has only just begun. Eliciting such an animalistic send off from Brunt proved that she had been doing something right. It was the ultimate veiled compliment. A public service announcement that she had become England’s most desired wicket. Welcome to the summer of Shafali.

Sometimes, all it needs is a name. The ring of those very specific syllables transporting you back to the summer they defined. Amla in 2012, Bell in 2013, Perry in 2015 or Smith in 2019. Throughout the summer they reveal themselves to be the face of a series. Shafali Verma became that face in 2021.

The road back to Test match cricket for India’s women has been arduous. By playing in just one, Shafali Verma has been involved in a seventh of Tests played during her short time on the planet. She was 10 the last time those particularly crisp whites were buttoned up. Bristol was the venue for the long-desired return; England the opponents.

For Verma, unfamiliarity did not breed uncertainty. Red, white, or pink, a cricket ball is a cricket ball after all. Still, this wasn’t a simple pressure-free introduction to the toughest form of the game. England had piled on runs before declaring and were in peak predatory mode, unashamedly hunting twenty wickets without the need to bat again. Verma shrugged and got on with it.  

Accompanied by Smriti Mandhana, she blunted, drove and caressed her way to 96 runs in a partnership of 167. The disappointment in missing out on a debut ton testament to the expectations which now attach to her, all 1.3 billion of them. But the highest score on Test debut for an Indian woman was quite the expectation satisfier. Not that Verma seemed to care. Simply another day in the life of the kid from Rohtak.

T20 debut at 15. Followed by discarding you know who as India’s youngest half centurion for India; the little master in waiting. At 16, officially the world’s best T20I batter. Now 17, and India’s youngest cricketer to play all three formats. A next-generation cricketer, in the most literal sense. 

It should have been job done at Bristol. A weather affected four-day test leaving minimal time for a result. But Verma’s teammates wanted more, and who can blame them? The remaining nine wickets falling promptly following the debutants demise. 

Back for more to face a similarly ravenous, now reinvigorated, bowling line up, who were sniffing an unlikely victory. That prospect was quickly extinguished. Verma again frustrated the English bowlers, while still managing to show impressive attacking intent. A further 63 runs ensured a draw for her team and the player of the match award. An imperious and classy debut. Global eyes were now open. 

Verma is a multi-format cricketer in the purest sense; she simply has to be. Format switching is the cricketers Rubik’s cube. The modern career is spent constantly tweaking and fiddling hoping that it clicks in time for the impending format. This elasticity is increasingly vital for the female cricketer, where multi-format series are now the norm. These series provide an extreme examination of patience, technique, skill and imagination; only the truly elite can thrive.

Luckily for India, Verma is elite. Her range of shots appears limitless. Come straight at her and she will blunt you; pitch it up and she will drive you; bang it in short and you’re swatted to the boundary. She will walk across her stumps to clip you away to leg, or give herself room and smash through the off side. The variety with which deliveries are dealt with is bold and brash. Pre summer there remained an unanswered question. Was the temperament transferable to longer formats? The answer has been emphatic. 

Verma made contributions in at least one game of every single format. Including an epic 48 runs off 38 balls in the second T20I to keep India’s series hopes alive. If Brunt didn’t get her early, she made runs. This is the beauty of the multi-format series. It allows these mini battles to develop. Verma v Brunt became captivating viewing. 

Yet, there remains a dichotomy at the heart of Verma’s success. Indian cricket has a generational talent on its hands, yes, another one. Her cricket is exciting, high quality and intensely enjoyable to watch. But without the requisite backing from her cricket board, it almost feels like it doesn’t matter what she does. She can be as good as she wants, but unless something changes, she will only be given a tokenistic glance.

Verma received a “Grade B” contract from the BCCI. It pays her approximately £29,000 to be one of the best in the world. Her male equivalents are paid around £485,000, with the lowest centrally contracted male player receiving roughly £97,000. There is also the well-documented caper in which the BCCI withheld prize money from the women’s inspirational run to the World Cup final in 2019. These “life-changing amounts” were only paid to the players once they had raised invoices and when the story was diligently reported in the mainstream press. The money had been paid to the BCCI fourteen months previously.

There appears a reluctance to conjure up a legitimate female equivalent of the IPL. The current tournament, The T20 Challenge, in which three teams play two games each is merely a box-ticking exercise. As the male tournament becomes unnecessarily bloated with repetitive game after repetitive game, the women’s competition couldn’t be trimmed any further. As sad as it is, money makes the game go round. The BCCI have copious amounts to throw at whatever they feel is worthy. At the moment there is a clear rejection of the women’s game. 

It leaves Shafali Verma hunting for game time. To the extent that she spent time training with Haryana’s men's team and facing Mohit Sharma in nets. She is reliant on the WBBL and The Hundred. For all the follies of The Hundred, and they are pretty much endless, the female version has become vital for the players. The salaries peak at £15,000 - the lowest male players being paid nearly double the highest women - but it is as much about game time. Opportunities remain scarce and need to be grabbed when available, regardless of what they look like. Sometimes it is simply about survival. 

India was eventually in win or go home territory with two T20s to play. On ball twenty of the must-win match, Verma unleashed. Inevitably, it was Brunt on the receiving end. With a violent swipe of her bat, the ball was catapulted to the boundary. Next ball, same result, as Verma stepped away and launched back over Brunt’s head. Ball three was hung outside off, this time a feather-like touch clipped the ball past point to the rope. Two slightly more agricultural swipes, led to two more boundaries, off the final two balls of the over. It was carnage. Brunt was stunned; England were stunned. Five fours off five balls and India’s recovery was on. 

It demonstrated every aspect in confirming she is destined for stardom. The temerity to rip apart a world-class bowler. The ability to play whatever shot the delivery required. Sometimes it wasn’t perhaps the perfect shot selection, yet she made whatever shot she played work. The concept of the 360-degree cricketer has become a cliche, for Verma, it is nothing less than reality. 

Ultimately, Brunt would have the last laugh with her final match send-off, but Shafali Verma has arrived. Now the headliner of the coming generation, let’s make sure she is given the proper platform. Your move BCCI.

I flipped open the laptop in a hurry. Punched the keys to bring up my usual page. I could feel the buzz of anticipation which preceded the inevitable come down. The buzz that always makes you continue. The hypnotic circle on the screen continued round and round. The premonitions start. Ball outside off, snick, gone….ball outside off, snick, gone..ball outside off, snick……..and then the screen lit up. A guilty pleasure, taking his guard, James Michael Vince.

Watching James Vince bat feels indecent. It taps directly into the senses. Witnessing someone strike a cricket ball so crisply and sweetly is seductive. It feels so good that it feels wrong.

There is something about the aesthetics of a technically perfect cricket shot that makes the body physically react. It sends a shiver pulsing through your nerves. Leaves hairs standing on end. The fusing of muscle memory and pure instinct resulting in the perfect timing of limbs which illicit a carnal response in all who witness it. Like that morning sip of coffee that seems to stimulate the entire body.

So many of the shots James Vince plays stir these sensations. You can feel the crispness of each shot. The vibrations from the striking of the bat’s sweet spot reflected in the bodies response. That physical reaction followed by a guttural groan erupting from the pit of the stomach; the release of butterflies. All of which leaves the viewer basking in a state akin to post-coital glow. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Yet, the pragmatist always returns. We are uncomfortable with indulgence as if we don’t deserve it. You can have too much of a good thing they say. We are uncomfortable embracing the feelings that watching James Vince evokes. Not very British to acknowledge feelings exist is it? Recognising the sensuality of a Vince stroke all feels a little French.

It’s the winning, not the enjoyment, that counts at the elite level. There is no fun here.

Back to that age-old question. Aesthetics versus results. So rarely do the two combine to maximum effect.

Another England squad without James Vince was not a surprise. Neither was the inevitable England batting collapse. There was a general consensus that Vince would never return with Ed Smith around, but even without him, the key decision-makers remain the same.

Vince is now 30. Technically in his peak, but his Test career is probably gone. The head can process it but the heart can’t. What would we give to witness it on the grandest of stages just one more time? To not have to peer through grainy streaming footage but lay back and bathe in ultra-high definition. Sensory pleasure.

This isn’t to say Vince’s non-selection was wrong. There are always shiny newer toys to play with. Ollie Pope, Zac Crawley and Dan Lawerence are the latest. There will always be more to come.

These new toys have earned their spots on merit and are exciting in their own right. But there must be a small part of all of us that yearns for the possibility of what James Vince can bring. How he can make us feel.

Those of us who have felt it can never forget it. We can never quite let it go. “The jittery acolytes of batting’s fragile beauty” is how Jon Hotten describes Vinceaphiles. Fragile indeed.

We’ve been here before with Gower and Ramprakash. Lambasted in the moment, where results are all-consuming and of sole significance, but that inevitably fades over time and the legend of their beauty only grows. Eventually, the heart yearns to watch them just one more time; how wanton we are.

We currently live or die with every one of James Vince’s domestic performances. A good performance instantly held up as justification for International inclusion, rather than appreciated in its own right.

In the moment, when the ball hits the screws, nothing else should matter. It’s pure bliss. Why let the mind wander when you can simply live in that moment. Enjoy being able to feel. Isn’t that what we are all ultimately searching for? Something to reassure us we can feel. Something to help us feel. A feeling we can return to.

To watch Vince when you know what is coming is a delight. But to see it in real-time, when it’s unexpected, is pure titillation. A player whose beauty is so often mistaken for hubris. Every player is dismissed, you may as well look good while doing it.

Out of context results lose meaning, but the bewitching hedonistic pleasure of watching James Vince batting will never fade.

Crab-like and collar up, the batsman has pushed, prodded and clipped all day. He has seen his team collapse in the first innings and taken it upon himself not to allow the same again. Another nonchalant push to the offside results in a saunter through for a second run, with time for a celebratory mid-pitch fist clench.

The helmet is ripped off to reveal an adolescent face peppered in stubble. A grin as wide as the Indus River. Pure joy. A kneel towards the almighty before the customary helmet and bat are raised in exaltation. A congratulatory embrace from the captain. Nothing overly extravagant, surely plenty more opportunity for that.

We’re in 2009. Barack Obama has euphorically been sworn in as US President; a flu-like pandemic is sweeping the world and Michael Jackson has moonwalked his last.

All the while, Pakistani youngster Fawad Alam is alerting the cricketing world to his extreme potential. Swatting his way to a stirring century on debut in the sticky heat of island coastal town Colombo. He spends over six hours at the crease, but his team still go on to lose.

Fast forward 11 years and the euphoria has dissipated. We are back to the norm of centuries past. Watching two old white men battle it out for the US presidency. A flu-like pandemic is again sweeping the world and too many have died to count.

It’s 2020 and Fawad Alam has again reached those glorified three figures. The symmetry is unavoidable. Again, it’s a coastal town on a small island, again Alam spends over six hours at the crease and, once again, it’s in a losing cause.

You’d be forgiven for presuming these bookend a decade of metronomic Test century making. But between the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2020, Fawad Alam played a grand total of zero Tests. Sure there were international white-ball honours, but it’s Test cricket where your name will endure long after you are gone.

In the period between his two landmark scores, Alam plied the domestic first-class scene with runs in historic fashion. Bizarrely it was never enough to bring a Test recall. Like the medieval cupbearer constantly nagged to pour more wine and eventually deciding to just waterboard the king “More runs you want is it, Sire? Have all the runs you want...mwhahahahaha”.

Reasons for exile have remained elusive and will be left for more informed experts to debate. However, the increasing clamour from Pakistani fans each time a Test squad was announced spoke volumes. Having doubled down and dug their heels in so often, it appeared a recall would never materialise.

Perhaps the bizarreness of 2020 permeated the selectors. Out of the blue Misbah-Ul-Haq et al were stirred into reason and recalled Alam. The long-overdue return arriving in the Test series against England last summer.

However, this isn’t a celebration of triumph over Pakistani cricketing politics but more a celebration of defiance over time and age.

Ten years is a long time. So long that a wedding anniversary is marked with a diamond. It can span someone's entire primary and secondary schooling, multiple heads of state and the majority of a professional sports persons career. For our protagonist, it must have felt like a lifetime. Ten years of national rejection all played out in full view of the public. A constant knockback being broadcast to the world. The first few years spent probably assuming it would come around again. Another few years and the doubt creeps in, perhaps you’ve assumed wrong. Eventually resignation. Your time is done.

For most this would be too great a pressure to withstand. The endless mental battles. The nights of lying awake wondering where it went wrong. Who had you pissed off? Questioning if you could have done any more. The temptation to just jack it all in. The thoughts of just burning your bridges and publicly dragging those who have brought the pain upon you. Better to have never tasted it than to have that intoxicating one time sip.

It makes the triumph all the sweeter.

The facts may remain similar but the aesthetics certainly aren’t. The stance has become even more extreme, now an explicit front on invitation to the bowler to simply bring it on. The stubble has sprouted, bringing with it the appearance of a quintessential hipster barista. Although not visible, the body has undoubtedly changed. Ten years worth of crouching, crabbing and swinging will have taken its toll. Muscles and fibres stretched to breaking point in the strive for a return to the top table. But critically, the heart and soul remain the same.

New Zealand, the place where it had all come to a shuddering halt, was the venue for a second coming. The strike rate has slowed down, acknowledging the precariousness of the present opportunity. One slip and it could disappear as quick as a genie in a bottle. Caress the lamp with care and all your wishes may still come true.

The triple digits are slowly crept towards. Clip by clip. Flick by flick. There’s a heart in mouth moment as a wild square cut is top-edged fractionally over the keeper. Then it arrives. Another cut backwards of square. This time it connects. Dissecting the field and creeping past the outstretched boundary rider.

The head lifts to the skies as if God is tugging at it on a string, directing the eyes towards him. The body sags understandably weighed down. 4218 days of wondering. 4218 days of waiting. 4218 days of doubting. No rushing this time. The helmet is slowly unclipped and a wry knowing smile peaks out amongst whiskers. A long embrace with the captain, head resting on his shoulder as tears take hold. The helmet and bat now removed before a celebratory dance. This one will be savoured. Who knows if it will arrive again.

The narrative is pure Hollywood. Young prodigy announces themselves on the world stage; they then encounter stumbling block after stumbling block; they work their way back through hard work (cue training montage) and the story arc is complete with final victory and fulfilment of potential. Sylvester Stallone managed to spread that whole narrative over five blockbuster films. It made him millions. We are suckers for that type of story because it’s devoid of reality. It just doesn’t happen. But here we are.

There’s an alternate universe somewhere where Fawad Alam isn’t cast aside at the first stage of failure. He becomes a lynchpin of Pakistan’s batting, slotting alongside Misbah and Younis, to form one of the most formidable Test line ups in the first half of the decade. He is there to bridge the period between the end of those great champions and the welcoming of new blood: Babar Azam, Shan Masood and Imam Ul-Haq.

He is there to pass on the wisdom of numerous Test centuries made, struggles overcome and how to bat in the worlds most difficult conditions. He is talked about as a candidate in all those unnecessary discussions of who makes a “Test Team of the Decade”. However, that is nowhere near as good a tale, certainly for the neutral, as this one.

Pakistani Test cricket was ostracised between 2009 and 2019. Banished to the dusty soulless bowls of the Arabian desert. In the same period, Fawad Alam was condemned to the reverse. Only granted the opportunity to display red ball skills domestically. Both seemed equally unlikely to change. However, a decade of hard work reaps rewards. Thankfully, both exiles appear over, and Test cricket is all the better for it.

In India, there are only men with big bellies and men with small bellies. So says Balram in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger. Indian cricket falls unambiguously into the former.

Here is a governing body that claimed tax exemptions on the basis that promoting cricket was charitable work, despite revenue of $860m in 2019, domestic league to which the entire cricketing schedule kowtows and the country most richly abundant in cricket’s natural resource; humans. When it comes to cricket, India is at the front of the dinner queue and overfilling their plate, regardless of the cost to those waiting in line.

So when prince suddenly became pauper, the narrative wrote itself.

India was dropped into a perfect storm in Australia, like Jeff Bezos being time-warped into Dickensian London and being handed a bowl of gruel. It was all very 2020s; further justification for those determined the end is nigh.

The WTF-ery of the Indian tour down under has still not dissipated. The pre-eminent cricketing superpower becoming the very being they have so often exploited: the downtrodden, the little man, the underdog. However, make no mistake, this was not a fairytale about the glorious resetting of inequity. This was a temporary underdog. Goliath masquerading as David.

Still, do you embrace it or do you crumble? The answer was emphatic.

There was a time when a similar type of adversity would understandably have been too great to overcome. Despite generations of great Indian cricketers, the mentality required to translate ability into a Test series victory on Australian shores appeared lacking.

In the 1970s and 80s unhelpful suggestions of inbuilt subservience being the aftermath of imperialism fed into an anglocentric view of India as being weak and an easy touch. Simply apply a little pressure and they will buckle. The kind of inherited views which manifested themselves in the contemptible scenes witnessed in the stands at the Sydney Test.

Regardless, it certainly took many years before there was a tangible belief in India that they could compete in an away series against Australia. Kapil Dev references the “gentle nature” of the Indian people not being conducive to competing in sport. Extreme aggression is so often seen as a prerequisite to success in elite sport. Sunil Gavaskar speaks of a culture lacking any sort of belief that they could challenge Australia. This was a country that churned out cutthroat demons one after the other. Dennis Lillee, the Chappell brothers, Alan Border and Jeff Thomson.

“I enjoy hitting a batsman more than getting him out. I like to see blood on the pitch. And I've been training on whiskey” Jeff Thomson

But that was then.

This is now.

Now Gavaskar and Border share their names on a trophy which represents perhaps the fiercest on-pitch rivalry in cricket. The awakening of India as a global economic superpower during the 1990s and 2000s breached the boundary rope. The little brother was now dishing out the pile ons and a more self-assured nation arose. The new India, as Narendra Modi is so keen to remind us.

A breakthrough win in Australia felt inevitable. But there were caveats when it arrived. Australian misbehaviour meant a ready-made excuse. No Smith and Warner came the retort on defeat. This time there was no such get out. On the contrary, it was India who would have a fall back for defeat.

I’ve always found it strange when football managers fight over the tag of the underdog before an upcoming match. Sure, I get it’s a cliched attempt at deflecting the pressure of being favourites from their players, but underdogs are underdogs for a reason, they are losers. Why would you seek that? But, this was different.

This Indian team aren’t losers. A freak chain of events had them tagged as losers before even having the opportunity to answer. Three months of continuous social distancing in a foreign land, the early departure of their influential captain and more injuries than a never-ending WWE cage match, meant judgment was passed. Bowled out for 36 and 1-0 down, they were written off.

India didn't lose again.

The storm hadn’t quite hit yet in Melbourne. No Shami was a blow, but the introduction of the energetic Mohammed Siraj became a defining moment of the series. Australia didn’t reach beyond 200 in either innings; the cool captaincy of Ajinkya Rahane saw India comfortably home.

Sydney was a different story altogether. Constantly straining to keep their head above water, the final day was backs against the wall. Perhaps in a previous era, the pressure would have been too much to withstand and a valiant fight in vain. Try telling that to the present day dasher, Rishabh Pant, who swaggered his team to an impressive draw, bringing the series to the decider at the Gabba.

Despite the pre-series hype, Australia clearly hadn’t clicked. The newly ruthless India would sniff out any weakness and expose it. Although not there in person, Kohli was certainly there in spirit, as the Indians slowly crept under Aussie skin. Langer’s mantras of elitism were stretched and pulled in every direction without ever snapping. Tim Paine channelled Partridge levels of insecurity and Steve Smith went weirdly scratchy, but nothing new there.

The Cricket Australia suits will have breathed a sigh of relief that the banter to abuse scale was brushed but not breached. It was all largely insignificant, and despite the rest of the world media attempting to flip the series into Cape Town Act II, the story remained one of Indian perseverance.

In Brisbane, everything went against India. They lost the toss, they lost their main bowler, they lost their influential all-rounder, but most importantly, these days, India are not losers.

32 and 4 were the numbers of significance before the toss. 32 years since a visiting team had won at the Gabba. 4 Tests of combined experience between India’s bowling unit.

The Test was of the nip and tuck variety. WinViz went full kamikaze, going back and forth like an elephant jumping on a set of scales. Eventually, India and their smorgasbord of Ranji Trophy men simply outplayed Australia. They were better over pretty much every day. For such an unlikely triumph, the result was deserved.

Only twenty-five men from the southern state of Tamil Nadu had previously played for India. Ten years ago the most recent one, Ravichandran Ashwin, debuted. At the Gabba, two of the eleven men in India’s line up were from Tamil Nadu, and neither of them was Ravichandran Ashwin. It barely registered. It was that kind of series. A series that had everything.

Make no mistake, this was an era-defining victory. However, the ultimate magnitude of the upset can’t truly be measured for some years. Ten years from now, when we revisit this series, it may be significant as the first for an all-time great in Shubman Gill, the discovery of the next great all-rounder in Washington Sundar and the emergence of Mohammed Siraj being the final piece in lifting India’s pace attack over the edge into greatness. That may place it as less of a shock than it initially appears.

Equally, we may look back on the final Test and see a bowling attack where not one of them earned another cap, an opening pair ending in unfulfilled potential and a one-time stand-in captain. In which case the shock factor would be off the scale.

India became such overwhelming underdogs for this one series based on a set of extreme circumstances. Not by their nature. Cricket is the number one sport in India. They have young boys, barely double figures in age, travelling by train four or five hours each morning to play cricket. Scratch the surface and there are layers and layers of international quality players. It’s clear that India will continue to produce them for decades.

These young players now have a completely different mindset from their predecessors. By the time they play in a Test, they have already overcome the ultimate rat race, where the odds of making it are so slim. These players need an insane level of mental toughness to even get anywhere near a First Class call up. Often they will have played in a domestic tournament worth billions of dollars, watched by billions of people and under extreme pressure.

Perhaps it was just that these players needed the opportunity, which is not straightforward when there are so many world class players as incumbents. The current squad - not team, the squad - is undoubtedly India’s best. This has only gone to prove the depth. Goliath indeed.

The joy in this victory can’t come from the fact that this is an underdog winning. I love that narrative as much as the next person, but the shoe doesn’t quite fit. This isn’t a true underdog.

The joy in this victory is of human triumph. Playing in the aftermath of the death of a father; having to confront racist abuse; having to confront racist abuse again; a Test debut when you’ve not seen a red ball for three years; being asked to step into the shoes of the most beloved cricketer on earth; taking a physical pummeling from the fastest bowlers on earth; being demanded to bat faster; being demanded to bat slower. Nothing can rival the beauty of the human victory.

The good guys won this time. Who gives a shit if they aren’t meant to be the good guys.

This is now. This is India.

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A spinner’s very existence is volatile. Unlike the occupation’s primary objective, the career arc is rarely a perfect parabola. Dom Bess’ young career has proved no different.

Bess is 23. He has been up, down, up and now down again. He’s been the speculative young bolter, the forgotten man, the backup option, the front line option, the answer and now the problem. The various routes and potential destination for Bess feel endless. He is in perpetual motion circling a roundabout of endless exits.

The initial exit route pivots Bess one hundred and eighty degrees. From South West to North East. From the filthy turning Taunton to the spine straitening flatness of Headingley. From the crisp cider infused air of Somerset to the cloudy bitter air of Yorkshire. All with the ultimate goal of becoming England’s primary spinner. A role in which he now feels very far away.

England Troubles

The precarious nature in which Dom Bess currently operates can be summarized in two words - incremental contract. The ECB hierarchy clearly like Bess. They just don’t quite want to commit to Bess. For 2020/21 he was given a contract reflecting that. If it feels half-hearted, that’s because it is. Prove yourself.

Jack Leach was awarded the same. No spinner received a Test central contract. A clear indictment of England’s scrambled thinking on the spinning red ball front. The selectors currently appear to be operating the ever trusty “love me, love me not” mode of selection.

This is only exacerbated by the fact that they are in an intense love affair with the prospect of spinners who can bat. This isn’t just a fleeting summer romance; this is total and utter infatuation. To the extent that the ability to spin the ball can sometimes feel like a secondary requirement to being able to slap a quick thirty alongside James Anderson.

This is all great news for Bess - who can certainly bat and is proud of it - until England actually need him to rag it. At which point it all becomes a little awkward.

Generally, this is avoided in home series. England have already nicked the opposition off for 50 and have their feet up by lunchtime on day four. But in the subcontinent, where spin is the optimal weapon from ball one, the batting suddenly looks a lot less impressive.

This was well evidenced over the winter.

In Sri Lanka, Bess saw plenty of work. The other spinning batsman was sick. On the face of it, Bess out bowled his immediate colleagues. 12 wickets at an average of 21.25.

However, the expected wickets suggested a red herring. An expected return of 7 wickets at 35.90 hinted at an element of luck or at the very least extremely inept Sri Lankan batting. Bess’ understated celebration only reinforced that discourse.

Wisden greeted Bess’ career best figures of 5/30 by asking whether it was “the filthiest five-for in Test history?”

Scepticism of Bess still clearly stifled any optimism. We like you. We just don’t want to commit to you.

Onwards to India and a different kind of pressure. The twirlyman’s paradise. A land where you are expected to take wickets. Where spinners are a prerequisite to winning.

Team success in the First Test could not hide Bess’ struggles for control. This time the surface figures didn’t need any further inspection. Twelve full tosses, in eight overs of work and on a day five pitch, was damning. As was an economy of 6.25.

Chris Silverwood wasn’t worried. “I think he just had a bad day, which can happen to anybody. I’m not concerned at this moment in time. Did he have an attack of the yips? No, absolutely not”

It proved to be the dreaded vote of confidence. Dropped for Tests two and three was that incremental contract in evidence.

The fact that Silverwood even mentioned the word yips is enough to set alarm bells ringing. Referencing a term for the sudden and unexplained loss of skills by a professional athlete, combined with the two test dropping, is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Bess probably wished he didn’t return for Test four. England risked it all with a four-man attack, including a sickly Ben Stokes, who could barely walk. After dropping him for two Tests, England expected Bess to immediately return for some heavy lifting. That vote of confidence from Silverwood doing exactly as you would expect.

Bess’ inability to provide consistency and control meant the overuse of Anderson and Stokes. Root continued trying to bowl Bess until it became impossible to do so. Continuing to throw Bess the ball until any inkling of trust in him had been entirely eroded. Eventually, Root had no option but turning to his own part-time spin, which proved of more value and less cost.

England spin coach Jeetan Patel summed it up, “things just didn’t work out for him”.

Bess’ international career had reached its nadir.

A winter that could have inked Bess as England’s spin option for the next decade, appears to have sent him to the back of the queue. Spinners left at home appear to have jumped ahead of Bess in the pecking order, simply by not playing.

Bess is now back to where he was around eighteen months ago. Having to prove himself on the notoriously spin averse County Championship.

So, where better to turn than the extremely seam friendly Headingley.

Yorkshire Better?

Leaving Somerset became a matter of when rather than if for Bess. The Devon boy forced to flee the nest in search of more regular and fulfilling graft. Jack Leach’s control and tidiness pegged him as the primary option in Taunton. For Bess to permanently elevate himself above Leach, he needed to do it elsewhere.

For a player looking to re-establish himself in the national set-up, Headingley seems a peculiar destination.

Notoriously unwelcoming to spin at domestic level, the often overcast skies certainly lend themselves towards seam bowling, for which Yorkshire is famed. The pitch certainly reflects this fact. It is flat.

Given that there is no such thing as a day five pitch domestically, there is less emphasis placed on spin scooping end of match wickets on a worn pitch. The pitches at Test grounds hold up reasonably well over four days. Unless they are specifically curated to extract turn, spinners will inevitably see significantly less action.

Yorkshire often bookends the season with an entirely seam based attack. Given that the County Championship is being increasingly pushed to the edges of the summer, it already feels like opportunities for Bess will need to be manufactured.

Across the previous four First Class seasons, only 12.3% of wickets taken at Headingley were via spin. Almost three times fewer than Bess’ former residence.

Beyond Taunton, the five most spin-friendly pitches in domestic cricket across the previous four seasons have been The Oval, Old Trafford, Edgbaston, County Cricket Ground (Chelmsford) and The Ageas Bowl. Of the resident counties, only Warwickshire had an obvious vacancy on the spin front going into this season.

The fit seemed perfect. A couple of hops up the M5 to the Midlands and Bess’ predecessor would be the newly appointed national spin coach, Patel. He’d be operating weekly at a perennial Test venue, for an ambitious county and at the former home of England’s premier spin option in the early 21st century - who just happens to be the ECB Director of Cricket.

However, importantly the desire to make space for spin is evident. A quarter of wickets being snared via spin between 2017 and 2020.

Warwickshire seemed keen, but ultimately Bess wasn’t. “With Warwickshire, we never came to an agreement or contract offer, but I know they were interested at times as well”.

It’s clear who made the choice given that Yorkshire announced the Bess arrival on 2 September and Warwickshire announced their Patel replacement, Danny Briggs, over a month later.

Certainly surprising given that Bess’ stated aim is a return to top billing in the national set up. Surely, he would have been aware of the underlying figures.

With talk of vengeful seaming wickets when the Indians return over the summer, you would assume selection of only one spinner per Test. Ed Smith is evidently still titillated by the prospect of Moeen Ali, and Jack Leach will provide tidy turn when required.

Strong Yorkshire, strong England so they say. However, such a proudly competitive county plays to win. They will certainly not dance to the tune of England selection. There is no guarantee that Bess plays every week unless it gives Yorkshire the best chance to win. Even if he does, it may be with an eye firmly on his batting prowess.

Before England’s first Test of the summer, Yorkshire play at Headingley (x3), Hove, Canterbury, Cardiff and Old Trafford. The latter being the only pitch that traditionally encourages spin.

Realistically, Bess needs to do something to change the current narrative. For that to happen he will need to catch fire in the first half of the County Championship. Even then it may not be enough.

Bess Stuff

There is one small piece of this puzzle missing. Bess has been here before. During that period of being the forgotten man, he also turned to the White Rose for intervention.

And it worked.

Despite all the anti-spin, gloomy skies and nibbling seam, Bess found success. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not quite as negative a move as initially suspected.

Amongst that paltry 12.3% of spin wickets, is a golden summer of 2019. A loan spell to Yorkshire where Bess took 25% of the team’s wickets at an average of 17.66.

Having returned to his parent club Somerset, he then went back to Headingley at the end of the season to face his former colleagues, claiming four of the ten wickets Somerset took as the lost by an innings. The architect of that loss was Bess’ successor, Keshav Maharaj. Who ended up taking a ten-wicket haul.

During the summer of Bess and Maharaj, 30% of Yorkshire’s wickets at Headingley came via spin.

Despite all the numbers to the contrary, perhaps there is a creeping glimmer of hope that with the correct amount of quality and ability, Yorkshire can become a fruitful home for spin. For Dom Bess, it is a necessity.

Onwards

The next contact year commences on 1 October. Clearly, the Indian series sits as a priority in ascertaining whether Leach, Bess or even Moeen Ali can obtain that elusive Test central contract. The financial reward is secondary. The real reward is recognition that you are the man to spin England into an away Ashes and beyond.

It is important to remember Bess is still only 23. This is so far from a lost cause and the move certainly feels like a natural career progression.

Taunton became a comfort blanket for Bess. He could hide behind the expectation that Leach was the one to take wickets and also the ability he could bring with the bat. Only being seriously involved when a second spinner was required was hampering his development.

We still don’t know whether Bess can deliver consistently when it really counts. When he needs to take to wickets. When a win, draw or loss hinges on spin and spin alone. It’s a high-risk high reward role

A four-year contract is commitment from both player and team. Acknowledgement from Yorkshire that he is a front line spinner, brings a certain expectation. He will have to turn it on a flat one. He will have to find a breakthrough during a stalemate. He will have to win them games. Undoubtedly there will be setbacks and challenges, but that is exactly what Bess needs. It will be how navigates these which dictate his international involvement moving forward.

It’s evident Bess has the desire and he certainly won’t go quietly. But the real question is whether he has the quality.

Now outside the comfort zone of Taunton, the upcoming season will go a long way to providing us with the answer.

The batsman prods tentatively to the off side, neither blocking nor playing a shot. The uncertainty perhaps muddying the mind in calling for a run that wasn’t there. Regardless, they should be fine. Just another of the many non-event moments which occur during a Test match.

The fielder comes flying in from the covers, sniffing an unexpected chance of a run-out. His execution needs to be perfect. Like a seamless gymnastic floor routine, he sprints to collect the ball, swoops and throws in seemingly one motion. The stumps are splattered. The non-striker continues running to the pavilion, it’s not even close.

Kraigg Braithwaite doesn’t break stride as he wheels away, raising his arm casually in celebration. Jermaine Blackwood follows him with arms outstretched, Joshua Da Silva runs in the opposite direction with fists raised, while John Campbell leaps to high five the wheeling Brathwaite. This feels different. The energy has been simmering and bubbling all morning. The new captain has just ignited it. Welcome to the Braithwaite era.

——————

Rewind twelve months and Kraigg Braithwaite’s Test career was on life support. The selector's fingers hovering over the off switch. Before the tour of England, Braithwaite had returned a meagre 241 runs from 21 innings, at an average of 12 in the previous two years. Not a single half-century.

Granted, Braithwaite’s thing isn’t necessarily churning out enormous scores. In a decade long Test career, his average has never exceeded 40. Crease occupation is his USP. But for an opening bat to go through such a barren spell made his position nigh on untenable. He was firmly propping up the bar in last chance saloon.

Perhaps the most repeated line around Brathwaite was that he’d not still be playing Test cricket if it wasn’t for the fact he played for West Indies.

Yet three innings above 60 against England, in notoriously difficult conditions for openers, hinted at some reasons for optimism moving forward.

A solid contribution in an all too rare overseas win against Bangladesh only solidified his position as the incumbent. However, it was what Braithwaite did without a stick or ball in his hands that had the selectors salivating.

His enterprising captaincy underpinned the victory. With proactive field settings and aggressive bowling changes, Braithwaite placed himself as the antithesis to Jason Holder’s more conservative captaincy.

Perhaps that lit a fire under the selectors. The potential of what could be. A little glimpse into the crystal ball shows that sometimes the grass is simply greener. No strings attached.

The timing seemed perfect. Clearly, the captain needs to be a guaranteed selection every Test match and Braithwaite could not previously demand that. Until now.

Temporary captain no longer. Rise up Lazarus and get that slick maroon blazer sized up.

—————

Quite the turnaround. From having his name constantly questioned at every squad inclusion, to now being written in at the top of the order in permanent marker.

The first toss as tenured captain was won. Progress already. The subsequent choice to insert Sri Lanka to bat first suggested perhaps not. The criticism consistently thrown at Holder that he had no confidence in the batting unit appeared to be continuing, and by the opening bat himself no less. Cue slander.

Being used to such an apparently conservative move clouded the early judgement. It transpired to be an impressively attacking and inspired decision.

Sparked by Braithwaite’s electric run out, the visitors were skittled for 169.

—————

So, we’ve made it this far without mentioning it. The elephant in the room. Those big bold multicoloured polaroids wrapped around his face. Glistening under the Antigua sun. It’s a look, make no mistake. Appearing like some sort of Daft Punk tribute act, Braithwaite gives nothing away.

You feel that’s exactly how he likes it. There is no emotional tip-off. Just a glistening stare back at the bowler, whether it’s fending off a sharp delivery, slapping it for four or simply waving it through to the keeper. It’s robotic, in look and in nature. Innocent intimidation of the bowler.

But that is Braithwaite. Neither too up nor too down. A steady hand to guide. And boy does he need a steady hand with such a tempestuous batting line up to anchor, let alone his own potentially prickly form. But it’s what is needed.

Perhaps it’s a reflection of a steely determination to grab this second chance with both hands.

—————

At first glance, the scores can still be low. But importantly, they can at least be vital.

The first test against Sri Lanka was a case in point. 3 and 23 on the face of it were hopeless but did not tell the whole story. I know back to the good old average in the teens, still, hear me out.

Let’s deal with the 3 first. Pinging the Sri Lankans out so swiftly on day one meant a tricky period before the close of play. The visitors had scored low and scored slow, clearly struggling to hit crisply. Clearly objective one was to begin day two with ten wickets intact. Braithwaite and John Campbell were successful. Out early the next morning, the contribution wasn’t worthy of praise, but it did hold value.

Second innings and the match situation was critical. Sri Lanka had plenty and now chased quick wickets. West Indies chased survival. Braithwaite the perfect man for the job. Ignore the 23 runs. The important number is 124. The number of balls faced in two hours and twenty-five minutes. Sting taken out of the Lankan attack and the match easily drawn. The batting line up expertly guided in batting the day out by Braithwaite. Sometimes needs must.

—————

What a difference a week makes. Slow and steady finally winning the race, as Braithwaite secured his ninth Test century. His first since July 2018. As wickets dropped around him this was the real announcement of a new captain. Always calm and ever-patient, he was there to partner every single batter under his leadership. As long as one of his men was out there, Braithwaite made sure they were never left alone. Standing reassuringly down the other end. Until the end.

A potentially series defeating total was slowly manipulated into a potentially winning one. His team were in position A1.

There was still time for some very out of character declaration setting in the second innings. Kraigg Braithwaite slapping declaration runs. What kind of sick new world are we in.

It did all become a bit much, eventually punctuated by a wildly comedic dismissal, as Braithwaite was cleaned up looking like a dog trying to grip a bat while walking on its hind legs.

To this point Braithwaite had been perfect. In his captaincy and his batting. He had controlled the entire Test and manipulated it in whatever way he wished. Such was his hand over proceedings it didn’t feel too much to expect him to also control that which is humanly uncontrollable; the weather.

In hindsight, the declaration was slightly off. Or more accurately, the pre declaration strategy was off. Declarations are the ultimate tightrope act for a captain. Open up too early and you risk being bowled out too cheaply. Leave it too late and you are inviting the draw. Attempting to ensure your opponent can’t win while still having enough time to bowl them out. Like trying to thread a camel through the eye of a needle. Add in a bunch of time lost to weather and it becomes impossible.

The captains who are best at judging declarations have often learnt the hard way. They’ve been burnt before. It was one step too far for a new captain. The spotty nature of rain interruptions meant any rhythm on the final day was quickly extinguished.

It slightly dulled an otherwise perfect first series as captain.

—————

A unique individual milestone. A sharp piece of fielding to spark his team. Captaincy that was calculated and innovative in equal measure. Vital crease occupation. A couple of hefty scores. This was a full on resuscitation of a Test career. Defibrillator on…clear…shock delivered…he’s back on his feet.

It all sits in contrast to his predecessor. Holder’s first Test as captain was also against Sri Lanka but under very different circumstances. A team in disarray receiving an innings skelping. Perhaps this is how it was meant to play out. Holder laying the foundations and navigating the myriad warring forces, before handing over when he could take it no further. He has more than done his time and should be commended for it. It certainly felt joyous to see him with pressure evidently lifted and calling out that happy hooker.

But this was Braithwaite’s moment. You can’t help but be pleased for him. He has been there alongside Holder through it all. He has worn his fair share of criticism and rightly so. However, he has earned this moment. He’s taken every success and every failure in the only way he knows, neither up nor down. Steady as a rock.

—————

It’s been a testing first day but Kraigg Braithwaite has anchored the innings. He’s made it to the final over of the day. He’s been on 99 for what feels like hours. Those elusive three figures are hypnotically close. Sure he’d like to get over the line before the close of play, what a night’s sleep that would bring.

Rahkeem Cornwall is on strike for the second last ball of the day. Twitchingly eager to get his captain back on strike for the final ball, he’s forced into a solid defensive block. He’s evidently frustrated with himself.

Down the other end, Kraigg Braithwaite slaps his bat in approval while enthusiastically nodding. He gives his partner a thumbs up to acknowledge the significance of preventing a vital late boost for the Lankans.

Braithwaite will sleep on 99, but he doesn’t care.

Look at me, I’m the captain now.