the sun deligthful green squares shimmering and shifting on vertical planes

crowd moronic beer snakes delightful

clarke bats an innings rooted in faith – that at some point his fellows would choose also to bat or that by virtue of still being in the time would arrive for him to march launch an assault of his own

amidst dropping wkts and a faithless crowd with no time for cricket or clarke or a struggling team clarke maintains. 30 runs from 150 balls he would have been perfectly happy to have scored 0 yet still be in after 150 balls. its possible a test match rests on the movements of clarkes faith and the way the powers it produces fall

the experiment so far has followed a form of attrition. rsa largely set benign fields bowled full and straight (very well) and waited for errors clarke denied all possibility of error and on the strength of faith batted himself deep into the ground. day 2 we watch carefully for the first signs of him wriggling free then blazing in the infinite. an innings of value = to 2 simultaneuous beer snakes stretching the length of the great southern stand concourse – bending in an unlikely curve to join up at the ends faith and son in tact