Lord's gets silly

Nathan Lyon's calf and England's bowling turn this match into something quite weird.

Nathan Lyon is standing in the long room. The reason is that he wants to come out and bat, but is afraid it will take him too long to get out there if there is a wicket.

Why the hell is he not sitting? Has Lord’s run out of stools? But also, why is he in the long room, because our sport has a law so spectacular that if he were to stand upstairs, he would be dismissed for getting timed out.

No one in Test history has been dismissed that way. Sourav Ganguly could have been timed out, but Graeme Smith did not appeal.

Almost every case of this happening in first-class cricket is hilarious. Andrew Jordaan missed his entrance because the roads near him were flooded on the morning of the match. Hemulal Yadav was caught mid-conversation and didn’t realise he needed to bat. Vasbert Drakes was chosen in a match, but his flight did not land on time. Andrew Harris had a groin strain and took too long to get out on the ground.

This is not a normal cricket dismissal. But this is not a normal Test match.

This is Mitchell Starc against the Bazballing England with nine fielders on the boundary.

If you can’t see them all from this photo, that is because there really isn’t a good angle to show every single player on the boundary. It isn’t a thing.

But that’s where we were. A bloke on one leg standing surrounded by men in red trousers who own property portfolios and England attacking with everyone on the rope.