Zak Crawley stokes flames and sparks India's fury in tetchy heatwave Test
According to the reports, by the fourth day there were three 'forlorn, destitute, ragged' men left in contention. 'Their boots were hanging to their feet by shreds.' Everyone else had been finished off by injuries, irritation and exhaustion.
Thirteen days into this series, and three into this Test, we are starting to get a pretty good idea what it must have felt like. This is hard cricket, in hot weather, on helpless pitches, being played at walking pace by two teams of exhausted men. There were five separate interruptions during the first hour of play on Saturday, it got so bad that the umpire Sharfuddoula Saikat even tried to do something about it and ordered one of the India squad off the field when he tried to run something on for Rishabh Pant five minutes before the midday drinks break. Whoever it was, they ignored him the minute he turned his back.
Eleven minutes of play just evaporated from the game in that session, while the umpires fiddled with the ball or Pant got more treatment on the hand injury he suffered while keeping wicket in the first innings.
It got worse as the day wore on. By the end, when England had eight minutes left to bat, Zak Crawley was essentially refusing to take guard against Jasprit Bumrah in an attempt to drag the penultimate over on so long that there would not be time for another after it. Crawley pulled away twice to deal with imaginary distractions just as Bumrah was about to run in.
When Crawley was hit on the glove he reeled away like he had been shot and called on a physio to treat his finger. Then everything boiled over and the India fielders surrounded him and he ended up having a stand-up row with Shubman Gill, who was busy wagging his finger at him.
This is a heatwave Test. Everyone is on edge. England did not play a five-day Test last summer and they've now had two of them, back-to-back, and are three-fifths of the way into what feels bound to be a third, against a team who play hard, bowl fast and sell their wickets dear. The atmosphere is intense and the rhythm's unfamiliar after three years of happy-go-lucky cricket, all smiles, scoops, sixes and tumbling wickets.
On Saturday, every wicket England took felt like a false peak: once achieved, they found themselves staring at the next one beyond it. When they finally prised out KL Rahul, 13 overs before the new ball, they found themselves plodding on uphill against Nitish Kumar Reddy, who batted like he had just had a ransom note warning him of the consequences of getting out cheaply.
When Reddy was done, there was still another long hour of Washington Sundar, who was playing the same way, ahead of them. It's blood and sweat cricket, all aching bodies, bad tempers and broken limbs.
This isn't BazBall. It's GazBall. India's head coach, Gautam Gambhir, is loving every bit of it. He is having much more of an influence on what is going on in the middle than his opposite number, Brendon McCullum. Both men want their teams to play the kind of cricket they enjoyed themselves. Gambhir is winning. He is a man who recently described it as a 'tough sport for tough people', and who once spent seven hours scoring 137 to save a game against New Zealand. He made headlines again before this game by telling the players that the tour 'is not a holiday'.
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You suspect that whatever else his team get up to in the gap between this match and the one after it, it is probably not the sort of jaunt around the local vineyards and golf courses McCullum laid on for England when they were in New Zealand last winter.
Gambhir is a man who was banned for elbowing Shane Watson in the chest while coming through for a second run during a double hundred against Australia and said afterwards he wasn't 'on the field to make friends', the man who had to be dragged away from a staring contest with Kamran Akmal, who squared up to Shahid Afridi after barrelling into him in the middle of the pitch during an ODI in 2007, and who had to be separated from Virat Kohli after giving him a send-off in an IPL game.
It's maybe no surprise that he is moulding this young team in his image. It's more remarkable that he is beginning to have an influence on England, too.
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The goalkeeper was the first to sky had to show them how it was the nature of the shoot-out naturally draws most focus, and is pretty much all most people will remember after that, there was still a performance that should draw at least some concern. 'I didn't enjoy it,' Wiegman said, albeit with laughter. She also pointedly disagreed with some criticisms of England's performance before Kelly dramatically transformed it from the 70th minute. The back-and-forth nature of the shoot-out actually reflected England's display in some ways. England got it wrong, then got it right, then got it wrong again, only to display that vintage individual resolve to somehow get through. One of the most remarkable aspects - before the penalties - was that Wiegman made the exact same mistakes as against France in the opening game. It was as if nothing had actually been learned, and that the recent revival was because of the poverty of opposition in the Welsh and Dutch games. England were still woefully vulnerable to pace. Keira Walsh had again been dominated in midfield, and Wiegman's side badly struggled to play through it. Sweden clearly targeted Jess Carter for pressing, but Leah Williamson wasn't exactly sure-footed beside her. This was the source of both Swedish goals. Kosovare Asllani strode through after two minutes, and Stina Blackstenius - whose pressing was causing all manner of problems - scorched through for the second. England's response was so meek until eventually, and what felt so belatedly, Wiegman made three subs. They were surprising subs, especially in removing Georgia Stanway and Ella Toone and not bringing on a replacement midfielder. England front-loaded and went direct. Kelly, who followed Wiegman's triple-change, played a superb ball for Bronze to head in brilliantly at the back post. She defiantly kicked a hoarding, in a foreshadowing of what was to come. Sweden just didn't expect what came next to arrive so quickly. England went straight for goal again. Kelly was this time central and, within two minutes, Michelle Agyemang had turned it in. A new hero. Delirium. But not quite a new direction. The one issue with Wiegman's subs was that they were right for the situation but not for an open game. Extra-time did look a lot like England were just trying to play through it and maybe take a chance. It also comes at a cost, despite the prize of that semi-final. Having gone the distance, all of Williamson, Bronze and Lauren James will need patching up. Williamson is of most concern, having rolled her ankle. Apart from the physical recovery, there's also going to have to be a lot of thought about the team for that semi-final. "I need to calm down," Wiegman said, as Hampton answered a Facetime from family in the press conference. It was that kind of mood. But danger awaits. Italy will surely have taken note of the blueprint to play this England. Wiegman's side have twice struggled in this tournament against quick and physical pressing teams. There were even signs of that going much further back, to the 2023 World Cup. Except, England still go that bit further in this tournament. Wiegman's sole defeat in knockout football is still that 2023 World Cup final to Spain. They still persevere. They still have that resolve, that grit. 'I think that's a quality that is so strong in this team, that togetherness and fighting back,' Wiegman said. 'It shows so much resilience.' England found a way. So much of that was through Bronze.
