Ireland v England: second men’s T20 cricket international delayed by rain - live

But numbers are just one way of expressing what Phil Salt does, what he is part of. They’re like the score to a great symphony, understandable as the method of conveyance, but hardly like hearing the music. Indeed, you don’t need to be able to read the music to listen, in the same way that you can watch without the slightest interest in interpreting the statistics.

So what is it like to watch Phil Salt? What language do we need for that? Because he is not one for the aesthetes or the classicists, is he? His conventional shots are not quite beautiful, they don’t have the zing or the dazzle of a Lara or a Sharma or a Gill. Abhishek, as a left-hander, has all of that mirrored grace absent from old Salty. No-one is hanging a Salt on their wall.

Instead, Phil Salt hits a new, hard cricket ball as hard as he can, which is very hard indeed. But that hardly works as a description, does it? We’re groping around for language. What would Arlott say? How would Cardus write it down?”

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