Three reasons for England fans to be cheerful, and fearful, after the Chennai win

Cheerful

1. Joe Root is quite good at what he does

In his 100th Test, where else but to Root first. Everything he did came off. He called correctly and almost snatched Virat Kohli’s hand off so keen was he to declare his intention to bat. You could see that the England captain was brimming with restless energy, failing to fully recall his team’s final line-up and answering host Murali Kartik’s questions in the manner of a man stopping to deliver directions to a well-meaning tourist whilst simultaneously bursting for the lav. Root wanted to get on with it, and duly did. His early jitters melting into nerves of Sheffield steel as he became only the third Englishman man to notch a ton in his 100th Test.

He was again a class above everyone else on the park, the ease and effectiveness with which he sweeps could almost move a man to verse. John Arlott once memorably described a Clive Lloyd pull shot as, “The stroke of a man knocking a thistle top off with a walking stick”. Root’s sweep is as nonchalant and impish as a child flicking the head off a dandelion with a toy lightsaber. Sorry, John.

2. Anderson delivers one of the great overs

Even the mass breakfast-time consternation that surrounded his decision to delay the declaration in order to have two cracks with the new ball didn’t do for him. In fact, maybe Root can claim to have had a hand in that over from Jimmy Anderson, the ball lethally reversing at the perfect time for Anderson to enact the most genius ‘double-castling’ since Beth Harmon gave a chessboard duffing to the sour-faced Russian in the Queen’s Gambit. Anderson may have left them in his wake long ago when it comes to the wickets column but he now has one of those folklore overs in his canon to be filed up there with Caddick’s four-in-an-over, Gough’s Ashes hat-trick and Flintoff’s working over of Kallis and Ponting.

3. Sibley improves, yet again

The last time cricket appeared on Channel 4 it was all super overs and sixes. This was something completely different; Test cricket at its best, all slow boil and simmer. Rory Burns may have had a match to forget but his opening partner Dom Sibley stuck to his task admirably. Soaking up pressure, using up balls and taking his sweet time, Sibley helped put miles into the legs of Jasprit Bumrah and Ishant Sharma and he also found a way to survive and later thrive against the spin of Ravichandran Ashwin, Shahbaz Nadeem and Washington Sundar.

Earlier in his career, Sibley used to be known, somewhat uncharitably, as ‘The Fridge’. These days he’s more slimline Zanussi than thick-set Smeg but luckily for England he remains as obdurate and unmovable as a lead-lined chest freezer. Sheepishly admitting that he was unsure of his place on this tour when probed by Niroshan Dickwella a few weeks ago in Sri Lanka, he would now surely feel buoyed enough to give a different answer if probed similarly by an interviewer or inquisitive wicketkeeper.

Fearful

1 – Room for other voices in Channel 4’s coverage

If the initial nerves on the field gradually gave way into relief and celebration for Root then the same couldn’t be said back in the Channel 4 studio, as great as it was seeing live Test cricket return to free-to-air television. Jammed into two arm-chairs that looked as if they’d been swiped from the snug of a Best Western, Rishi Persad and Alastair Cook took longer than England’s batsmen to appear somewhere near comfortable. Persad did admirably with limited tools available, eventually settling and warming to his work. The same probably couldn’t be said of England’s greatest ever run-scorer, resembling as he did Vic Reeves’ impression of Lloyd Grossman, all awkward hands, elongated wrists and somewhat mealy of mouth. Poor old ‘Chef’ showed that he still has a long way to go before he masters the art of punditry and unwittingly re-enforced just how good the Sky guys are.

Despite interludes from Simon Hughes, Andrew Strauss and Monty Panesar, it all felt a little forced. To be fair, as the Test rolled on the duo settled down, and the obvious caveat is that they had little or no time to prepare for this first Test. Let’s hope things continue to improve, it’d be nice to think things will be shaken up slightly by the addition of more guests that aren’t solely ex-players or I don’t know, could even be… female?

2 – Bess’ second innings performance

Dom Bess’ full tosses – as well as he bowled in the first innings – gave me some cause for concern. There was something almost ‘yippy’ about their regularity in the second innings. You feel like he could be targeted in the same way Jack Leach was by Rishabh Pant and although he seems to brim with the confidence of youth, all wide-eyed and ‘mate-dropping’ through his media commitments, you fear he might not be able to bounce back as emphatically as his old Somerset team-mate, especially when things get tight and England don’t have the luxury of stacks of runs already on the board.

3 – Beware the wounded tiger

Finally, beware the wounded tiger. England’s win is being debated as one of their finest away victories ever, and rightly so. They’ll have to keep up those impeccable standards, taking all their catches, racking up the runs and prising out wickets with both pace and spin. India, with their absurdly dominant home form behind them, will bite back and England will have to be ready.