England v India: fifth men’s T20 international - live

Key events

4th over: England 29-1 (Buttler 18, Brook 3) There’s the scoop from Buttler, simply placing the bat in place and allowing the ball to do the work, which it does for four. Prasidh Krishna though gets the following ball to keep low, that’s interesting, it crashes into Buttler’s thigh from a short length. Not so a couple of balls later, as Krishna dishes one up full outside off, and Buttler creams it down the ground for six. An off-side wide to follow. Late single means that Buttler keeps strike, maybe the former captain is trying to make sure that the new bloke gets a few minutes to calm down. A dozen from the over.

Share

3rd over: England 17-1 (Buttler 7, Brook 3) Buttler finally gets a shot away, decent pull shot against Arshdeep to the fence, but it’s the only notable score from the over, and a quiet start for England extends to half the Powerplay.

Share

Andrew Cosgrove emails in. “I have spent most of the day stuck in a Bengaluru traffic jam, so like you I chuckled to hear that the Indian coach has been delayed. Presumably over here they get a police escort to clear the road ahead (although there’s only so much that can do, I suppose). I’ve been discussing with my (Indian) partner, maybe it would have been worth trying Sooryavanshi at 3 or 4 to take a bit of the pressure off. What do you think?”

I’d say that in many ways there’s less pressure as an opener, because you don’t have to adapt to different match situations. The Kid has a clear plan to hit big as early as possible, so doing that with the field up is in his favour. He’s more devastating against pace than spin, so opening makes it more likely that he’ll get pace. And he’s not been cowed by facing big-name bowlers, so there’s no real downside. Just that it’s not as easy to launch bowling on varying pitches around the world as it is on IPL pitches.

Share

2nd over: England 10-1 (Buttler 1, Brook 2) Giant ugly swat at the ball from, who else, Harry Brook. Misses the lot. Ishan Kishan has had the gloves taken off him today by Samson, but he’s still trying to play wicketkeeper from cover, appealing for a catch and then lobbying for a review. The captain ignores him, and Brook had missed it on the replay. Brook off the mark next ball pulling two.

Share

WICKET! Salt c Shedge b Krishna 6, England 8-1

Prasidh Krishna, who is both the giant and the beanstalk, opens up from the other end, and the first boundary of the day comes via a Phil Salt straight drive. Nothing huge or wallopy, as is often his wont. Crisp past the bowler. But that’s as good as his day will get, as he lines up the next ball and whacks it out to deep square leg, and while there are only two boundary riders allowed so early in the innings, he has found one of them on the full. Shedge on debut takes the catch.

Share

Updated at 10.15 EDT

1st over: England 4-0 (Salt 2, Buttler 1) Another quiet opening over for England with the bat. Arshdeep Singh is swinging the ball with his left-arm efforts, and neither Salt nor Buttler tries anything expansive.

Share

Looks like we’re finally going to get a game.

Share

Teams - The Kid is out

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has indeed been dropped for the first time in his career, with Samson coming back, and Suryansh Shedge making his debut. His surname doesn’t rhyme with hedge, if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced more like Shed-geh.

Dawson comes in for England, spinning all-rounder.

England

Phil Salt

Jos Buttler +

Harry Brook *

Jacob Bethell

Tom Banton

Sam Curran

Will Jacks

Liam Dawson

Jofra Archer

Adil Rashid

Josh Tongue

India

Sanju Samson +

Abishek Sharma

Ishan Kishan

Shreyas Iyer *

Shivam Dube

Tilak Varma

Suryansh Shedge

Axar Patel

Prince Yadav

Arshdeep Singh

Prasidh Krishna

Share

Updated at 10.11 EDT

Harry Brook says he wanted to bat anyway, so happy days. Iyer says the wicket won’t change much, so presumably India want to know the task ahead of them with the bat.

Share

India win the toss and will bowl

Shreyas Iyer calls heads correctly, and there’s a small bump in fortunes for India.

Share

There we have it: the toss will be 45 minutes after the scheduled time, then a shortened break before play, which will start 30 minutes after the scheduled time.

Share

Updated at 09.40 EDT

Footage on the telly of India’s players arriving at the ground. We’re waiting on revised start times.

Share

Also remarkable, considering the adventure that is travelling by road in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, that Indian teams still consistently reach the ground on time in all of those places, but had to come to England to get a bad enough traffic jam to keep them from playing.

Share

Start delayed

This is a comical one. The start of this match will be delayed. Not because of rain, not because of lightning. Not because of bees. Not because of stray crossbow bolts. No, the start of this match will be delayed because of… traffic.

The Indian bus is stuck in traffic, and the players couldn’t get to the ground in time.

Who would have predicted that the cricket ground nestled between two motorways, miles outside of the nearest town, with no reasonable means of getting there by public transport, would have problems with traffic?

Ah well, good thing there’s an Ashes Test scheduled there next year, no doubt that will go swimmingly.

Share

Click here to read article