The 3.8-mile shuttle bus from Southampton Airport Parkway to the Utilita Bowl took 57 minutes. In the middle of a heatwave, the bus, sun magnifying through the windows, crawled at walking pace along Botley Road. A single-lane road, it is the only one that services the 25,000-seater stadium on the outskirts of Southampton.
“Was that the hottest journey you’ve ever been on?” one woman asked in relief as she got off the bus. Not only that, but it soon transpired that this was her first-ever game of cricket.
“It’s not normally as shit as this,” her friend added reassuringly.
The Utilita Bowl is due to host its first-ever men’s Ashes Test next year. Its selection as one of the five venues was already controversial, with no Ashes Test scheduled further north than Nottingham next summer, and in the penultimate international fixture to be hosted here before that occasion, carnage ensued.
“Did you fall for the Utilita shuttle?” messaged one colleague, whose own trip here last month for the Women’s T20 World Cup had seen the bus journey back to the station take 50 minutes.
Similar sentiments poured in online, as regular Hampshire goers bemoaned a ground that is labelled as being in Southampton, but is more accurately in the small, poorly accessible suburb of West End. If you wanted to get an Uber to the ground from the station, it would have knocked you back £50.
The result of the congestion was a delayed start, as the Indian team’s journey to the ground took an hour and a half. All being well, it should have taken 18 minutes.
There are mitigating circumstances that Hampshire will be able to point to. Regarding the Indian team, they are staying in the city centre, and with five cruise ships in town, the footfall of Southampton is artificially large at the moment. However, they say in politics that if you’re explaining, you’re losing. In cricket, if you’re blaming a boat on water for Shreyas Iyer missing the toss on land, you’re not going to get very far.
Next summer, the ground will have to ship 25,000 people in and out, five times over. Today they were nought from one.
The real shame is that once in the ground, the venue is excellent for cricket. During evening T20s, the sun sets over the back of the Shane Warne Stand and illuminates the sky a deep orange, while behind the pavilion are rolling hills and trees that span the ground.
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On a day like today, a lack of shade was an issue, but once the capacity crowd was in, they were treated to an extraordinary display of hitting from England, as they racked up 257 for three thanks to a remarkable 131 from 64 balls from Jos Buttler, and an unbeaten 95 from 45 by captainHarry Brook.
Across the afternoon, records tumbled. England’s 257 was the highest total that India had ever conceded in a T20, while Buttler and Brook’s partnership of 223 off 103 balls was the fourth-highest in the history of T20 internationals.
It was a welcome return to form for Buttler, who had been without a half-century in his last 18 T20 internationals. At 35 years old, there had been some concern that Buttler’s dip in form was the result of the permanence of age, rather than a temporary blip, but in reaching three figures, he became the first Englishman to have at least two centuries in all three formats. The next T20 World Cup is at the back end of 2028. A long way away for a man who is already England’s most capped cricketer in history with more than 400 appearances. But if there is one man England will not wish to discard too soon, it is him.
England’s 56-run thrashing also completed a superb 4-0 series sweep of India (the first match of the five-game series was rained off) and saw them ascend to No 1 in the ICC T20 world rankings. Despite all the recent Test match failings and off-field drama, as T20 skipper Brook has put together an impressively consistent side that have won 20 of their last 23 matches. World rankings in cricket are at best a rough guide to recent form as opposed to anything definitive. But nothing bad has ever come from being slated at the top of the tree, and for that Brook and his men deserve credit. Whether it is enough for the ECB to trust Brook with the Test job, however, remains an open question.
By contrast, India, the back-to-back T20 world champions, have been beaten into a pulp and were turned into a rabble. They were soundly beaten here and dropped several simple chances in the field. The four losses in a row to England, combined with their 2-0 defeat to Ireland, has seen them lose six consecutive T20 matches for the first time in their history and prompted a BCCI review. For the T20 here in Southampton, the 15-year-old sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was left out after scores of 14, 13 and 15. The result is that he can now lay claim to not only being the youngest-ever cricketer to play for India, but also the youngest ever to be dropped by India as well.
In all, as the sun baked down in Southampton, England wrapped up one of their most impressive ever T20 series victories. The only thing worth adding? If you’ve got tickets to the Test match here next year, it might be worth setting off now.
Photograph by Dan Istitene/Getty Images