England won back the Wisden Trophy for all eternity (it is being replaced by the Richards- Botham Trophy in the future) by beating the Windies in the third Test in the series, in Manchester. The Windies once again chose to field at the toss, hoping for the promised terrible weather to wash out the game and for them to secure a draw and the series. The weather would not cooperate, and three full days were played before a wet Monday halted play. England predictably posted a difficult-to-catch 369 in their opening innings, and the Windies, lethargic from weeks of travel and quarantine, could not hope to match it. Stuart Broad made absolutely sure of it, taking six wickets of all varieties with punishing fast bowling of the highest order. England tacked on some more runs in their second innings to go up by a whopping 398, and only Mother Nature could possibly stop them. For a day, it paused the England onslaught, but on Tuesday, the skies cleared just enough for Broad to get his 498th, 499th, 500th and 501st career Test wickets, while the other man in the photo, Chris Woakes, bagged a 5-fer. The trophy theirs, England looks ahead to three ODIs with Ireland starting Thursday, which are always competitive and spirited, and then another three-Test series with mercurial Pakistan, COVID-permitting as always.
The CPL fixtures were announced. There are a bunch of 10 am games for the India market, which is good for me when I’m working from home.
Also announced were the 2023 CWC qualifying fixtures, which raised eyebrows when England and Australia realized they had to actually qualify for the damned thing. Quelle horreur!
