1) High jinx in Hyderabad
Such is the volume of Test cricket played by England that perspective is hard to discern – great wins soon displaced by great defeats, social media heroes elbowed out by social media villains (often the same player) and generational talents suddenly condemned as also-rans. Cricket, with its statistical tables, sortable databases and multiple formats, lends itself to trite hierarchies – take your pick of rankings, averages or aggregates as the basis for a row.
England’s come-from-behind heist in Hyderabad that launched their 17 Tests year was extraordinary, wasn’t it?
Jasprit Bumrah, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel knocked over the tourists for a predictable 246 and were then handed a 190-run lead to finish the job for an equally predictable win. Enter Ollie Pope, maligned then and maligned later, but, for one day, he swept, he missed, he reverse swept, he missed again and, somehow, he was still standing on the high wire at the close. Frustration set in and the tail wagged and suddenly England had more than something to bowl at – they had a chance.
Nobody saw the 24-year-old Bazball pick, Tom Hartley, as the man to bring it home. But Bazball picks get Bazball support, and Ben Stokes had kept the faith when he was manhandled in the first innings and got his payback with seven wickets in the second.
It was a win for the ages. Or it was until New Zealand went to three of India’s fortresses in the autumn and won three times.
2) King Kimber – just for one day
Perhaps it is a little harsh, but Louis Kimber was not (and probably is not), a household name in his own household. Playing at a backwater county, Leicestershire, in his mid-20s, he had an average in the mid-20s, something of a Jim Foat de nos jours. Until one glorious morning when the batting gods touched his shoulder and he became the Viv Richards de un jour.
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News of something remarkable was seeping into the commentaries from other grounds. Chasing a highly improbable 464 at Hove, Leicestershire were 144-6 in the Sussex morning sunshine and any spectators who had shuffled in were considering an afternoon dodging seagulls on the prom. Nothing to lose, Kimber kicked off.
Sixes rained into the stands, 21 of them to go with 20 fours; Ollie Robinson was taken for 43 in an over; records fell, Kimber didn’t. The scoreboard turned like the calendar in The Time Machine and the target got closer and closer and closer.
We all knew how it would end, Nathan McAndrew, cast as the Stewart Cink spoilsport, bowling our hero off the inside edge, 19 runs away from a win that would have been just that bit too much – the gods do have their mystery to maintain. Our hero spent the rest of the season in Foatish obscurity, but nobody can take that glorious morning away from him.
3) Pakistan get it right
Kevin Pietersen trademarked the flamingo shot, but Sajid Khan trademarked the flamingo celebration. One leg up, one leg down; one arm up; one arm down; one man out, two men out, three men out … well, you know how it goes.
Pakistan do not need a second invitation to overreact to a defeat and were we not the clever ones scoffing at the replacement of Babar Azam with the unknown Kamran Ghulam, Shaheen Shah Afridi with middle-aged Noman Ali, and Naseem Shah with pantomime pirate king, Sajid.
Ghulam peeled off a century full of heart and skill and the spin twins hogged 39 of the 40 wickets their country needed to seal a come-from-behind series win – the cornered tigers had roared again.
Some may point to pitches that favoured the wily pair of tweakers, but the surfaces demanded application rather than fortune, consideration rather than clobber. These were Tests that Pakistan won at least as much as England’s sweepers lost. And that perfect combination of the explosive extrovert Sajid and the quiet introvert Noman deserves huge credit and maybe, just maybe, a chance to play together in tandem at least one more time.
Now, where did I put those industrial fans?
