Who wants the TMS overseas link? What’s it worth?

Oh go on then.

Today's schedule

On-the-nose musical interlude

Barney Ronay on Josh Hull

You could – and some will – call Hull’s selection the most damning statement of thanks-but-no-thanks ever directed at county cricket. Picking him is literally saying, there is nothing to be gained from succeeding in this. We will instead pick a 20-year-old with 16 wickets at 62 because we like how he looks. How are you meant to feel about this if you’re a 27-year-old with hard-earned county numbers, winning games every week, running through the pain, dreaming of a bigger stage?

There were more issues with the light yesterday, including a weird few minutes in which Chris Woakes was obliged to bowl four balls of offspin. Here’s what Olly Stone made of it all.

“Imran Khan played 48 of his 88 Tests at No7 and averaged 35,” writes Gary Naylor. “He’d be in the conversation. Shaun Pollock played half his 108 Tests from number 8 and averaged 31 there!”

Imran is in almost every conversation about great cricketers, isn’t he? I do think he played his best cricket at No6, though he was still a giant.

“Hi Rob,” writes Marcus Abdullahi. “Batters to average over 40 batting at 7 (min 20 Tests) from highest average to lowest: de Kock, Gilchrist, Greg Matthews, Litton Das, Chris Cairns, Wasim Raja, Alan Knott, Matt Prior and IT Botham.”

That’s a good list. Litton Das has played some extraordinary innings in that position.

And now it’s over to Andrew Miller for the weather

I think we’ll start on time, but there’s a yellow weather warning from 2pm, so there’s that.

International cricket lost a bit of charm overnight when Moeen Ali announced his retirement from all forms. His England career is hard to summarise, isn’t it? He could exhilarate and frustrate in equal measure; he was England’s most elegant left-hander since David Gower; he was too unselfish for his own good; and he was – for richer and poorer – a beacon of humanity. Moeen has an endearing honesty and self-awareness, as shown by his own assessment of his career.

I hope people remember me as a free spirit. I played some nice shots and some bad shots, but hopefully people enjoyed watching me.

He wasn’t a great player, but he leaves cricket in a better place than he found it. And the extent of his influence on British-Asian cricketers may not become apparent for another 10 or 15 years.

Ali Martin’s day two report

Preamble