Rain dampens spirits on Day 1 of Oval Test; How does London weather look like in remaining four days? Check Details
As many as only six overs could be bowled after lunch before the players had to rush back to the pavilion, forcing an early Tea. The stoppages hurt the batting side especially, impacting the momentum. Earlier, heavy rain and thunderstorms were predicted for July 31 in London.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hindustan Times
22 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Gurugram witnesses waterlogging, traffic jams and power outage after rain
Heavy rainfall in Gurugram caused power outage, waterlogging and traffic jams in several areas, including Delhi-Jaipur highway on Monday evening. The problem of power outage was also reported from different areas of Gurugram.(File/PTI) The traffic police were seen trying to clear out congestion on the roads even during rain. The problem of power outage was also reported from different areas of the city. "Despite repeated issues, the MCG and GMDA have not effectively cleaned the drainage systems. Crores of rupees spent in the name of waterlogging management but in Gurugram even light rain led to waterlogging", said Arjun Goyal, a student of LLB, who was stuck in the traffic jam near Rajiv chowk. A senior traffic police officer said that in order to ensure that drivers do not face any problems due to waterlogging at various places, officers are on duty to ensure smooth flow of traffic.
Hindustan Times
22 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Siraj emerges from Bumrah's shadows
Mumbai: It almost felt karmic when Mohammed Siraj brought the curtains down on the final Test at The Oval after an enthralling hour's play on Day 5 with his knockout punch – a yorker fired in with a scrambled seam grip to uproot Gus Atkinson's off-stump. As the fast bowler flaunted his imitation of Cristiano Ronaldo's signature celebratory move, the Indian section among the capacity crowd erupted in delirium. India's Mohammed Siraj and Dhruv Jurel celebrate following the team's victory in the fifth Test match against England, at The Oval. (PTI) Cricket Gods are not that cruel after all. If that was the case, Siraj's fielding lapse on Sunday that gave Harry Brook a reprieve on 19 and the rising England star smashed 111 would have remained the lasting image of the Test among the emotional Indian fans. To those who don't stop trying, life gives another chance. If it wasn't so, Siraj would not have got a shot at redemption, having also despaired that he was the last wicket to fall in the Lord's defeat that ended India's batting resistance and gave England the series lead. To help overcome that low, Ravindra Jadeja had asked Siraj to think of his late father – he drove autorickshaw to make ends meet – and how hard he had worked to get here. Siraj looked heavenwards in thanks on completing the win. Siraj was the heartbeat of the team through the gruelling five-Test series packed into six weeks. 'A captain's dream', Shubman Gill called him. The final wicket came in Siraj's 186th over of the series, 47th spell overall. The only fast bowler to play all the Tests and still remain standing. The body protested with aches and pains but the spirit was unbroken. Gill was the Player-of-the-Series for his 754 runs, but India's would not have levelled the series without Siraj's relentless spells. If England felt India were still in the game with only 35 runs to defend and 4 wickets to get, it was because of Siraj. 'When I woke up this morning, I told myself I would change the game. I opened Google, downloaded a 'believe' image and put that as my phone wallpaper,' he said after the match. Siraj had many prized scalps in the series with the wobble seam nipping into right-handers, but to put scoreboard pressure and under grey skies on Monday, he bowled outswingers, slightly wider. That's how he got Jamie Smith, who could have sealed it, but never got the freedom to score. Siraj was so good in the morning that Gill felt, 'they couldn't touch bat on ball'. With so much swing on offer with the old ball, India didn't take the second new ball. The batters would have known Siraj's sucker delivery – the wobble ball that shapes in. Still, Jamie Overton and Atkinson were defeated. Though India won by only six runs this time, they had pushed England into the final hour of the previous Tests. The real test was Sunday evening when Siraj had to lead a three-man pace attack knackered after the pasting by the 195-run stand between centurions Brook and Joe Root. Siraj soldiered on bowling long spells, conducted the crowd and helped set up wickets for Prasidh Krishna at the other end. 'My only plan was to bowl consistently at one spot and to move the ball in and out from there. I didn't want to try too much because that could have released the pressure,' he said. It may sound a cliche, but wickets are often earned by repeating such 'boring' tactics. In Day 4's early exchanges, Siraj beat Ben Duckett five times in an over from over the wicket. Prasidh ramped up pressure by coming in from a different angle, pushing the aggressive left-hander further back to eventually get him with a fuller ball. When Siraj isn't taking wickets - he took 9/190 in the match and 23 in the series – he's setting up batters. As seen during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy where Jasprit Bumrah was exceptional, Siraj unselfishly provided the support cast. 'My job there was to work in partnership with Jassi bhai…how well he was bowling,' he told reporters. 'But I always believe I can get wickets in any situation. Even if I am bowling the eighth over of a spell, I give 100 percent.' In England, Siraj truly emerged from Bumrah's shadows. Both the Tests India won came in Bumrah's absence. And they couldn't have done it without the man who never stopped believing.
Indian Express
22 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Prasidh Krishna's journey in England series: From a meme-troll to able ally to Mohammed Siraj
A series that began on a catastrophic tone, an embarrassing statistical millstone, a frank admission of his listlessness, and the tedium on the bench, has ended on a redemptive note for Prasidh Krishna. Until the last five days of the long and arduous tour, he was the answer to the pub-side trivia. A) Who is the first bowler in Test cricket to bleed more than run a ball in both innings? B) Who owns the highest match economy for an India Test bowler? The heartless meme-troll world celebrated the failure of Prasidh. His could be fodder to cruel humour until someone emerges with more disfigured numbers, but the last five days of tour would have felt like liberation, an unburdening of all the accumulated angst and doubts. Bouquets would be showered on Mohammed Siraj, confetti popped on Shubman Gill and maybe a fizz of champagne splashed on Gautam Gambhir. But Prasidh could reflect satisfactorily on the spirited support shift, a haul of eight-fer, he put on in Oval, the match-defining wickets as well as take the learnings from his longest streak of Tests. The toil could at least buy him a few more Tests. He has rough edges. Like several tall bowlers, he is prone to bowling too short too often. It is a paradox, when the greatest gift is also the biggest enemy. Height, and the discomfiting bounce he could generate, can make batting an ordeal. But the failure to harness his ferocious strength, that is by erring on the shorter side, on flat and modestly fast England decks, and over-compensation in the form of half-volleys, can bleed a torrent of boundaries. He leaked 69 fours and eight sixes, that is nearly one of eight balls. Like the first ball he bowled on the fifth day, a short-ball filth that Jamie Overton slugged to the fence. He is not the first tall bowler who has experienced this frustration. His own bowling struggled to direct the venom of his bounce at the start; as did his predecessor Ishant Sharma. But throughout the carnage of runs plundered, he also illustrated the reason the team management has invested in him, those that once made Virat Kohli tweet about his 'X factor'. Whenever he bowled a yard fuller, he not only purchased movement, but also extra lift and skid. Jamie Smith would confess. He tried to crunch him on the rise, rose with the height of the ball, but still could not ride the bounce and ended up missing the ball altogether. And not to forget he might have killed the contest pretty early on day 4 itself when he had Harry Brook heaving to long-leg where Siraj fluffed it. A shorter, but not quite a rank-short one, ball hurried into Zak Crawley's pull in the first innings at Oval. It was only a few centimetres, but the impact was markedly different, and vicious. If only he could hit the hard, or even veer onto the good-length band, he would be a deadlier proposition. When he hits that length, batsmen become wary of driving him and so even when the ball is there to be driven they often fail to get fully forward, bringing the edge into play. They are caught in a dilemma, as Jamie Smith was in the first innings, square-driving a ball that bounced more than he had judged, and Joe Root in the second innings when he tried to glide the ball past gully but with static feet and heavy hands, unusual of England's talisman. A trifle fuller, he nips the ball devilishly into the right-hander. Then tall seamers tend to avoid the fuller length, because they risk floating the ball up when striving to bowl fuller. How he balances his virtues and cracks the consistency code would determine his career, whether the Oval sizzle was an aberration or the sign of a genuine upturn in his graph. A tall bowler who could coax bounce would be an invaluable commodity, irrespective of conditions. If he could fuse bounce with seam movement both ways, he could be an even precious jewel. Among India's seamers, he has the highest release point, he generates the steepest bounce, is fairly quick, and can bowl long spells. The height is the difference between one bowler hitting the middle of the bat, and him jarring the splice from the same length. Trajectory apart, they create the illusion of bowling shorter than they really do. But he is 29, not young any more, an age when bowlers mature and peak, patience would soon wear thin. But if he is groomed smartly and his frame does not wilt, he could enjoy a late spring like Ishant enjoyed towards the tail-end of his career. As much as the gifts of his physique, the strength of his mind too stands out. Few bowlers recover from the spate of injuries, from stress fractures to quadricep tears, he had suffered in the last few years, just when he seemed ready for Test cricket. Months of rehab cost his game that could have developed him into a rounded, worldly-wise operator. Fewer still would have recovered from bashings in the first Test, the crude humour on social media and still made a decisive impact in squaring the series. In Oval, too, there were times he was hideously erratic, when the English bowlers feasted on him. But he showed the wherewithal to fight back, to not lose his head, to try still and wait for the kiss of life. So much so he would take the trivia jokes in a light-hearted vein.
