Key events
The teams
England have a debutant of their own – Josh Tongue, making his first appearance for them in a red shirt after doing taking dozens of wickets in a white one. Jofra Archer returns too. It’s always good to see him and Tongue is well worth a go, but it’s bizarre that there is no room for Saqib Mahmood. He shone in the gloom on Wednesday and would surely have relished the chance to maintain his red-hot form in front of his home crowd. The decision feels premeditated, rather than a response to the situation.
India 1 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan (wkt), 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Harshit Rana, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.
England 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wkt), 3 Harry Brook (capt), 4 Jacob Bethell, 5 Tom Banton, 6 Sam Curran, 7 Will Jacks, 8 Liam Dawson, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Josh Tongue.
The first email comes in from Guy Hornsby. “I know this may be down for some as another meaningless bilateral,” he says, “but even before Sooryavanshi’s debut was announced, this feels bigger than that.
“Two teams packed with stars, all the Test players back for England, and a raucous Old Trafford full of blue shirts all urging on their team to show England who is boss in the white ball game. I am certainly buzzing, and I’ve only had an ice cream!”
Iyer’s decision allows the crowd to see Vaibhav Sooryavanshi right away. His fearless hitting has already made him a superstar in the IPL: now we’ll see if he can do it on a blustery Saturday in Manchester. He will become India’s youngest-ever cricketer, beating the record held for decades by Sachin Tendulkar. He was born in 2011, for goodness’ sake. You couldn’t make him up.
Toss: India win and bat first
It’s so windy at Old Trafford that Shreyas Iyer’s cap blows off in mid-toss. But he doesn’t lose his composure, calls right and decides to make England’s bowlers cope with the gale.
Sooryavanshi starts!
They’ve seen sense and selected him! At the tender age of 15. What a moment.
Preamble
Afternoon everyone and welcome to England’s smallest game of the weekend. It’s smaller than the football, it’s smaller than the rugby, and it’s way smaller than the women’s cricket. While Nat Sciver-Brunt’s team have a World Cup final, the men are playing the second game in a T20 series that started with a wash-out and may be forgotten before it has even been noticed.
But every international fixture is big for somebody. This second game between England and India is big for the ECB, whose profits for the financial year hinge on hosting India for these two white-ball series. It’s big for English cricket, which is still reeling from Ben Stokes’ shotgun retirement. It’s big for Harry Brook, who needs to carry himself like an England captain, rather than the figure he cut last Sunday – the man at the stag weekend who’s still drunk on the flight home.
It’s big for Sam Curran, belatedly being recognised as a realistic option to succeed Stokes as the Test all-rounder and, if they really are going to burden Brook with the Test captaincy, to take over the white-ball teams. And it’s big for Jos Buttler, who, since a buccaneering 83 in his last appearance for England at Old Trafford, has gone 20 innings without a fifty – or even a forty.
It could be big, too, for someone who is not expected to play: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the teenage wonderboy who had to watch on Wednesday as his elders and lessers at the top of the Indian order limped to 6 for 2. The signs are that Sooryavanshi won’t be picked today either, but his international debut is surely just a flop away.
As always with international sport, there are subplots to spare, so do stick around if you can. The weather forecast is good for Manchester, and I’ll be back at 2pm (BST) with the toss and the teams.
