No bubble could keep rain away as cricket returns in England - Chris Waters

Sod’s law made that entirely predictable. No biosecure bubble can keep out rain, the oldest virus the game has known.

The wet stuff seeped from slate-grey skies, and you could almost hear Mr Sod himself – if there exists such a person – laughing his evil head off.

All that planning. All that preparation. All that adapting to “the new normal”. Yes, of course it was going to ruddy rain.

Oh well, thanks very much, Mr Sod. If there’s anything we can do for you, by the way...

I suppose we should be grateful for the fact that you did allow 17.4 overs, England reaching 35-1 after they ignored what must have been a tempting blanket of cloud cover for their bowlers to exploit by instead choosing to bat on a dry-looking pitch at the Ageas Hole (yes, I did mean Hole).

The man who made that decision, of course, was Ben Stokes, who is standing in as captain for Joe Root while the Yorkshireman celebrates fatherhood again.

“Do it your way” was the message that Root left on the coat hanger of the captain’s blazer before leaving the bubble to attend the birth of his second child.

Presumably, however, that did not extend to Stokes absent-mindedly meeting the West Indies’ captain Jason Holder’s elbow bump at the toss with an extended right hand.

Old habits die hard, and there was laughter all round.

Everyone knows that Stokes is a ruthless competitor on the field, and he is clearly no shrinking violet on the leadership front.

Indeed, his first act as captain was to drop Stuart Broad (485 Test wickets) and to pair Jofra Archer and Mark Wood together for the first time in a Test match in a clear indication of the way the wind is blowing as England look to build a team that can win in Australia.

“Broady took it like an absolute champion,” said Stokes of a man who is missing his first home Test match since 2012.

Yes, ‘Broady’ looks like exactly the sort of chap who would take it that way.

Broad’s time will come at some stage this summer – the games come thick and fast from this point on.

When you consider that England also have the likes of Chris Woakes, Sam Curran, Olly Stone, Ollie Robinson and the Overton brothers waiting in the wings, they are not exactly short of depth in the pace bowling department as they look to reach the rank of world No 1.

There is also strength in depth – albeit not quite of the same sturdiness – in the batting department, while any side that can afford to leave out Yorkshire’s Jonny Bairstow perhaps thinks it is already No 1 (biosecure taxi for National Selector Ed Smith, incidentally).

The opening day of this benighted season was not so much about team selection, though, or how many runs were scored and wickets taken, or how many overs were bowled, as about the simple fact that cricket is back. Hooray.

For those watching on television there was even an artificial “Lord’s hum” to create the illusion of a crowd. This was utterly shattered, however, by the lack of the sound of a Lord’s steward moving someone on with the words, “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t come into this stand wearing those jeans.”

The most memorable part of proceedings came just before the start. The players formed a socially-distanced horseshoe on the outfield to remember in silence those who have lost their lives during the pandemic and also the great West Indies batsman Sir Everton Weekes, who died on July 1, aged 95.

The players “took the knee” before the first ball was bowled, reiterating support for the Black Lives Matter message which the world of sport has done much to uphold.

The first ball itself was utterly forgettable, Rory Burns defending Kemar Roach into the gully for no run. However, what little play there was seemed lively enough.

Burns survived a review when he left Roach and was struck on the pads, but his opening partner Dom Sibley was not so lucky when he left the 10th ball of the game from Shannon Gabriel and was bowled.

Having lost around two stones in weight during lockdown, the off stump was timber that Sibley did not want to be losing.

Joe Denly – surely drinking in the last chance saloon now that the pubs are open again – survived one or two hairy moments, but he also played one or two nice shots, particularly off Gabriel.

Ultimately, however, it was a low-key start to the 2020 half-season.

Why, Mr Sod would not have had it any other way.

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