India v Australia – Ranchi Test: What now?

‘Thanks,’ said Mitchell, sweeping the broken victuals into an old pillow-slip which he carried in his person for such an emergency. ‘I s’pose you find it dull round here.’
‘Yes, pretty dull.’
‘No one to talk to much?’
‘No, not many.’
‘Tongue gets rusty?’
‘Ye-es, sometimes.’
‘Well, so long, and thank yer.’
‘So long,’ said the cook (he nearly added ‘thank yer’).
‘Well, good day; I’ll see you again.’
‘Good day.’
Mitchell shouldered his spoil and left.”
“Mitchell: A character sketch,” Henry Lawson.

 

Australia is down two Mitchells.

 

I bowled a pretty fast ball once.
It would have been 1993. Maybe 1994.
And yet, with Mitchell Starc’s injury, still I have been overlooked for Pat Cummins.

 

And Mitchell Marsh has been omitted.
Or was he injured?
Australia down two Mitchells.
Who will come in for Australia? AC Agar? GJ Maxwell? UT Khawaja?

What is this dark, muddy-looking pitch going to do, in Ranchi’s first ever Test?

1-1 with two to play.
V Kohli is still seeing red over SPD Smith’s checking with the dressing room over whether to make a DRS referral.
That was probably outright cheating.
It certainly looked that way.
And I’m not sure “brain fade” would have satisfied pundits had boots been reversed.

But now we are back to the cricket.
After diplomatic headaches, selection queries and all the smoke and haze, Test cricket is back.
Bring on the cricket.

 

Nominate a day. Share your stories, your views, experiences of this Test.
Day 1, Thursday 16 –
Day 2, Friday 17 –
Day 3, Saturday 18 –
Day 4, Sunday 19 –
Day 5, Monday 20 –

About David Wilson

David Wilson is a hydrologist, climate reporter and writer of fiction & observational stories. He writes under the name “E.regnans” at The Footy Almanac and has stories in several books. One of his stories was judged as a finalist in the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize 2021. He shares the care of two daughters and likes to walk around feeling generally amazed. Favourite tree: Eucalyptus regnans.

Comments

  1. Dave Brown says

    I really have no idea about this Test, ER. No idea why M Marsh was playing in India, let alone playing injured. No idea why Stoinis and Cummins are in India; no idea if they’ll play. No idea who is willing to take responsibility for Cummins’s long term physical wellbeing (ask a young man to put on a baggy green and of course he’ll say yes).

    No idea what that brown mark is on the pitch and how watering it will help. No idea why the groundspeople started to mark out a fielding ring before it was pointed out to them it is not needed in a Test.

    No idea why Kohli thinks a mistake by Smith that was immediately addressed by the umpire is worse than reviewing a non-dismissal after seeing a replay on the big screen as he did a month earlier against Bangladesh. No idea why the ICC hasn’t charged him with making unsubstantiated allegations of cheating (the ‘they did it a number of times while I was batting’ claim) as they would any other international cricketer in the same circumstances.

    Isn’t uncertainty wonderful? Hoping for another classic. Cheers

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