England v India: fifth men’s T20 international – live

Key events

7m ago

WICKET! Salt c Shedge b Krishna 6, England 8-1

24m ago

Teams - The Kid is out

30m ago

India win the toss and will bowl

1h ago

Start delayed

2h ago

Preamble

3rd over: England 17-1 (Buttler 7, Brook 3) Buttler finally gets a shot away, decent pull shot against Arshdeep to the fence, but it’s the only notable score from the over, and a quiet start for England extends to half the Powerplay.

Andrew Cosgrove emails in. “I have spent most of the day stuck in a Bengaluru traffic jam, so like you I chuckled to hear that the Indian coach has been delayed. Presumably over here they get a police escort to clear the road ahead (although there’s only so much that can do, I suppose). I’ve been discussing with my (Indian) partner, maybe it would have been worth trying Sooryavanshi at 3 or 4 to take a bit of the pressure off. What do you think?”

I’d say that in many ways there’s less pressure as an opener, because you don’t have to adapt to different match situations. The Kid has a clear plan to hit big as early as possible, so doing that with the field up is in his favour. He’s more devastating against pace than spin, so opening makes it more likely that he’ll get pace. And he’s not been cowed by facing big-name bowlers, so there’s no real downside. Just that it’s not as easy to launch bowling on varying pitches around the world as it is on IPL pitches.

2nd over: England 10-1 (Buttler 1, Brook 2) Giant ugly swat at the ball from, who else, Harry Brook. Misses the lot. Ishan Kishan has had the gloves taken off him today by Samson, but he’s still trying to play wicketkeeper from cover, appealing for a catch and then lobbying for a review. The captain ignores him, and Brook had missed it on the replay. Brook off the mark next ball pulling two.

WICKET! Salt c Shedge b Krishna 6, England 8-1

Prasidh Krishna, who is both the giant and the beanstalk, opens up from the other end, and the first boundary of the day comes via a Phil Salt straight drive. Nothing huge or wallopy, as is often his wont. Crisp past the bowler. But that’s as good as his day will get, as he lines up the next ball and whacks it out to deep square leg, and while there are only two boundary riders allowed so early in the innings, he has found one of them on the full. Shedge on debut takes the catch.

1st over: England 4-0 (Salt 2, Buttler 1) Another quiet opening over for England with the bat. Arshdeep Singh is swinging the ball with his left-arm efforts, and neither Salt nor Buttler tries anything expansive.

Looks like we’re finally going to get a game.

Teams - The Kid is out

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has indeed been dropped for the first time in his career, with Samson coming back, and Suryansh Shedge making his debut. His surname doesn’t rhyme with hedge, if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced more like Shed-geh.

Dawson comes in for England, spinning all-rounder.

England

Phil Salt

Jos Buttler +

Harry Brook *

Jacob Bethell

Tom Banton

Sam Curran

Will Jacks

Liam Dawson

Jofra Archer

Adil Rashid

Josh Tongue

India

Sanju Samson +

Abishek Sharma

Ishan Kishan

Shreyas Iyer *

Shivam Dube

Tilak Varma

Suryansh Shedge

Axar Patel

Prince Yadav

Arshdeep Singh

Prasidh Krishna

Harry Brook says he wanted to bat anyway, so happy days. Iyer says the wicket won’t change much, so presumably India want to know the task ahead of them with the bat.

India win the toss and will bowl

Shreyas Iyer calls heads correctly, and there’s a small bump in fortunes for India.

There we have it: the toss will be 45 minutes after the scheduled time, then a shortened break before play, which will start 30 minutes after the scheduled time.

Footage on the telly of India’s players arriving at the ground. We’re waiting on revised start times.

Also remarkable, considering the adventure that is travelling by road in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, that Indian teams still consistently reach the ground on time in all of those places, but had to come to England to get a bad enough traffic jam to keep them from playing.

Start delayed

This is a comical one. The start of this match will be delayed. Not because of rain, not because of lightning. Not because of bees. Not because of stray crossbow bolts. No, the start of this match will be delayed because of… traffic.

The Indian bus is stuck in traffic, and the players couldn’t get to the ground in time.

Who would have predicted that the cricket ground nestled between two motorways, miles outside of the nearest town, with no reasonable means of getting there by public transport, would have problems with traffic?

Ah well, good thing there’s an Ashes Test scheduled there next year, no doubt that will go swimmingly.

Preamble

Geoff will be here shortly.