Virat Kohli<\/a> and in style too.\u00a0<\/p>\nMeanwhile, Rishabh Pant is always box office and has taken India to the next level after MS Dhoni. High praise indeed, for both.<\/p>\n
Manchester karaoke mayhem\u00a0<\/p>\n
A triumphant return for Oasis in Cardiff prompted me to pop into The Millstone in the Northern Quarter in Manchester for some karaoke.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paddy, an 87-year-old from Belfast, belted out Suspicious Minds and then a young buck with false tan and gelled up hair absolutely destroyed Don\u2019t Look Back in Anger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Liam Gallagher would have given him a mouthful.<\/p>\n
My advice to England\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
England need to try and get out of this game unscathed. For large parts, they have been comprehensively outplayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s dangerous to play for a draw but I hope they don\u2019t play recklessly. With such a mammoth target, it\u2019s a question of not looking at the board, playing naturally and eliminating risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lose and India will have all the momentum. And remember, visiting teams always lift their game at Lord\u2019s.<\/p>\n
![\"England](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/100039591-14878371-England_need_to_not_look_at_the_board_play_naturally_and_elimina-m-7_175173939446.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
England need to not look at the board, play naturally, and eliminate risk if they want to catch<\/p>\n
Rishabh Pant’s wild antics\u00a0<\/p>\n
I see that Rishabh Pant has now taken to throwing his bat at the fielders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I understand he\u2019s a keen golfer and it makes sense because golfers are told to grip the club very lightly. That lightly in fact that someone could pull the club easily out of your hands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The only other one I can recall who threw the bat in such a manner was Mark Richardson, who played for New Zealand.<\/p>\n
![\"Rishabh](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/100039589-14878371-Rishabh_Pant_is_great_fun_to_watch_and_even_ended_up_flinging_hi-m-5_175173934376.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Rishabh Pant is great fun to watch and even ended up flinging his bat across the turf<\/p>\n
Fancy dress day\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was fancy dress day at Edgbaston with Little Bo-Peep with no sheep, the pig getting chased by the butchers and many more wonderful ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But none of these compare to the pantomime horse that entered the field at Headingley in 1998 and was charged down by the rugby players, who were there as security.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The poor lad dislocated his shoulder and St John\u2019s Ambulance couldn\u2019t get him out of the costume!<\/p>\n
A quiz question for you\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Away from Edgbaston and there\u2019s plenty going on at Lancashire. The umpires weren\u2019t happy with Phil Salt\u2019s bat size and he had to get it replaced then Saqib Mahmood took Lancashire\u2019s first hat-trick in 21 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one player who played in that T20 on Friday and played in that match in 2004 when Dominic Cork took the hat-trick. Of course it\u2019s Jimmy Anderson.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now here\u2019s another quiz question. Which team took six wickets in six balls this week?<\/p>\n
Could India regret this?<\/p>\n
I had a message from none other than Farokh Engineer questioning why Kuldeep Yadav is not playing. Well, I agree Mr Engineer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the last day, India may well be crying out for some wrist spin. This is when they need Yadav but in fairness, Siraj and Akash Deep have bowled really well on a surface that hasn\u2019t offered much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
India went with the conservative selection of Washington Sundar but will they come to regret not having Yadav on a day five pitch?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India took control of the second Test at Edgbaston with England requiring 536 runs to win with seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,92,7504,43158,93,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-240922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-england-cricket","11":"tag-india-cricket","12":"tag-sport","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114802459640119836","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"England](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/100039539-14878371-image-a-1_1751739180194.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Shoaib](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/100039557-14878371-Shoaib_Bashir_has_series_figures_of_eight_wickets_for_476_runs_s-m-3_175173928417.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n