A practice net at the Sydney Cricket Ground will be empty on Friday for the first time since January 2018. Its only occupant, England leg-spinner Mason Crane, has packed his kit and booked a flight to Islamabad.
Crane won his solitary Test cap at that ground and never walked off it. He bowled through Australian summers that melted the rubber on his spikes. He bowled through winters of a phone that did not ring. He went through six pairs of boots a year and refused a single day off, because a day off is how they get you.
The call finally came in England's squad for a one-day tri-series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka. That is a round-robin warm-up for next year's 50-over World Cup, with a final in Lahore on 31 October. A World Cup is fine. Nobody here is losing sleep over a World Cup. Crane takes the back-up wrist-spinner role from Rehan Ahmed, and somewhere a scoreboard operator is quietly unplugging his own ear.
"We have seen men wait for a bus. We have seen men wait for a refund," said a spokesman for the Federation of Patient Men, which has named Crane honorary president. "We have never seen a man stand at the end of his run-up through two full Olympic cycles."
Sydney groundstaff confirmed they will need six tonnes of fresh soil to fill the trench where his front foot used to land.
