TEST MATCH BREAKFAST: Shubman Gill passes India icon after his side lose 15th toss in a row as Graham Thorpe's headband set to take centre stage
Aadam Patel was at The Oval on Thursday and he has jotted down six points to ponder ahead of day two.
Thorpe tribute
On Friday, the life of Graham Thorpe will be celebrated and remembered at The Kia Oval. Today would have been his 56th birthday and the occasion will see his trademark headband sold for £5 each to raise funds for the mental health charity Mind. The headbands have been co-designed with his family, while the England players are set to wear them for their warm up. Joe Root, who was mentored by Thorpe, was pictured wearing the headband on Wednesday and Sir Mick Jagger promoted the initiative on social media.
Counties cash in on Hundred windfall
First-class counties will begin to receive money from sales of The Hundred teams from Friday. All 18 counties are initially due more than £400,000 which they can spend as they see fit. Bigger windfalls are due at a later date. The seven counties that host Hundred teams, plus the Marylebone Cricket Club, will receive around £18m, and the 11 non-hosts are in line for around £24m. Richard Thompson, the ECB Chair hailed it as 'a great day of the game' and told Test Match Special that 'it's only a matter of time before Indian players will play in the Hundred.'
Gill passes Gavaskar
Shubman Gill may have failed with the bat on Thursday but he ticked off another record. His series tally of 743 runs is now the most by an India captain in a Test series, surpassing Sunil Gavaskar's 732 runs against West Indies in 1978-79. Gill averages 82.55 in this series and will need to score at least 67 in the second innings if he wants to beat Don Bradman's record of most runs (810) by a captain in a series. Gill scored a mammoth 585 runs in the first two Tests but the 25-year-old looks set to fall short of Bradman's overall record of 974 runs in a five-match series.
Indian families join London leg
India arrived in England at the start of June and will end up leaving in the first week of August, culminating a two-month stint in the UK. The team rules for India only allow the immediate families of the players to stay with them for up to 14 days on a tour of 45 days or longer - with the BCCI paying for the families' accommodation on tour but not their travel. Most of the families have come over during the London Test matches, with the likes of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Karun Nair all sharing pictures in recent days, enjoying the sights of the capital with their loved ones.
Toss woes continue for India
Remarkably, for the 15th time in a row, India lost the toss in an international game. Sky Sports then revealed that the chance of that happening is 32768-1. The ECB social media team enjoyed seeing Gill call incorrectly again as they tweeted 'In breaking news… India have lost the toss' with a laughing emoji. Mind you, it was the first time that Ollie Pope has won the toss as England captain, having lost it on each of the four previous occasions he has stepped in to lead the side, in the absence of Ben Stokes.
Fifth-day tickets snapped up
With the first four Tests all going into a final day, it should come as little surprise that tickets have already sold out for the fifth day in London. Surrey priced tickets for Monday at £20 for members and £25 for non-members, with all of them selling out around a month ago. Under 16s tickets were priced at £1 each. In a summer where there'll be no more Tests after the first week of August it shows the appetite for the longest format of the game. And given the the forecast for the coming days, this contest may well go the distance too.
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