Nobody knows anything about Test cricket. Thank god

Warne’s fellow outspoken hair-replacement advocate Michael Vaughan was of the same view, foghorning into the ether about Joe Root’s non-declaration and suggesting it could affect England for the rest of the series. Luckily, with Vaughan having predicted India would lose 4-0 in Australia only a few weeks ago, this one barely needs to go down as a gaffe.Amid the nonsense, we were able to enjoy some genuine fourth-innings magic courtesy of West Indies and debutant Kyle Mayers, who could barely find a swag bag big enough for all the records he made off with in Chattogram (after a Bangladesh declaration, lest we forget). A reminder that, as William Goldman once said of Hollywood, “nobody knows anything” – and Test cricket is all the better for it.

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Rumbling emerging from Australia, where it seems a few of the players have let slip that they don’t class Justin Langer’s coaching methods – how shall we put this? – in the elite bracket. Now, it’s easy to mock Langer for his many foibles – it’s practically a raison d’etre for some of us. But with the gnomic one describing such reports as “a wake-up call” on these pages and vowing to use the feedback positively, it was hard not to feel sympathetic, particularly given one of the items on the charge sheet. As Langer put it: “Now I’m the grumpiest p***k in the world because I told Marnus [Labuschagne] not to take a toasted ham and cheese sandwich after his 40-minute lunch break.” You’d think Australians might be glad that a toastie is the worst thing Langer’s players are trying to smuggle on to the field these days.

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It not’s unusual for the Light Roller to sit down and consider whether it would be wise to delete the contents of our hard drive. After all, what could be more X-rated than archive footage of Wasim Akram delivering unplayable reverse-swinging rockets (possibly achieved with a little assistance from the dark arts)? News that Facebook had recently blocked pictures of an England team huddle for being “overtly sexual” raised the stakes, however. What else should we now be concerned about? Could classic images of Andrew Flintoff and Sourav Ganguly baring their emotions (and their chests) fall foul of the filters? Are motivational bum pats in danger of being reclassified as erotica? On the flip side, we know there’s nothing more effective at catching the interest of kids than banning it. Maybe cricket as pornography can help inspire that much sought-after new generation of fans…