I must admit that when I realised I was going to have to watch Smith bat, my heart sank. However, well done to Jofra Archer by making the day much more enjoyable by skulling the fúcker good and proper.
I must admit there was a brief guilty moment as the sickening thud of leather on convict echoed around the ground where the cheer died on one's lips and one realised the bástard might ruin everyone's fun by actually dying. Thankfully, however, he had the good taste simply to be concussed and one could go home and watch the incident repeatedly with a clear conscience.
Now if Jofra could just hit Warner as well. Mind you, he'd have to hang around long enough to allow him to get up to top speed for that to happen.
I must confess to being slightly bored by the endless chin-music by the end of yesterday. I mean, letting them know you're there and putting it in the mixer is all very well but when your prime strategy is to kick as many of the opponents off the park as possible it eventually ... lacks elegance, I felt.
I enjoyed watching Leach more tbh.
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, fúck me, but Archer's lethal. I've never seen anything like it.
In the paper today, they point out that he's already hit 19 batsmen this summer. Not bad for a bloke who made his international debut in May.
You can see why he keeps doing it, though. There's just no discernible difference between his action at 86mph and 96mph.
To be honest, I'd have been happier if the earlier one had broken his arm, since that would've put him out of the series. But I can't deny the blow to the head was more aesthetically satisfying.
I can't be doing with all this po-faced sanctimony. Exactly what's exciting about watching a guy that fast is the same thing that makes him dangerous - the fact that he's scary and dangerous. For people to talk about how 'exciting' he is and then start wringing their hands when the cause of that 'excitement' has its inevitable consequences is ridicules.