Calm at Canterbury

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It is a cloudy and cool morning in Kent.

There's something strangely evocative about being at a cricket ground several hours before the start of play.

All is quiet and calm at this historic venue eight now with the stands empty and the scoreboard blank and the only movement that of groundstaff measuring and marking out in the middle and the trees at the Nackington Road End swaying slightly and swallows dashing about in and out of their nests above the press box.

Groovy.

Keith Barker has an ankle injury so is ruled out today.