Despite being bowled out before lunch on the first morning, Warwickshire will fancy their chances of completing a remarkable turnaround, having moved to a position 278 runs ahead with three second-innings wickets intact.
He had given up 145 runs for his three wickets and there was nothing the young spinner could do to halt the fiercest hitting he has had to deal with.
Peter Wilby's remark about Indians only being allowed to play cricket in India after a "prolonged struggle" (Sticky wickets, Review, 2 August) is an example of the freedom-struggle revisionism that now often passes for history on the Indian subcontinent.
Maybe he felt a bit of that too, starting the match against table-topping Yorkshire with just three first class wickets in his previous three matches for his new employers.
But even then England still wanted 76 runs to win when he was out - on a wet, treacherous pitch, with three wickets left.
Afghanistan's mission improbable began with a degree of relative promise but wickets soon began to fall.
The left-armer Keith Barker completed a five-wicket haul in the first innings and then passed the baton to the international trio Chris Woakes, Rankin and Jeetan Patel, their leading wicket-taker who wrapped things up with wickets in consecutive overs, in the second.
From the New Road end he certainly turned the ball sharply at times, managed to take the wickets of Rutherford – who, out of character with the tone of this particular innings, charged, missed and was stumped – and Mark Craig, who will be his Kiwi spinning counterpart at Lord's and drove to short extra cover where Ross Whitely took a sharp catch well.
They triumphed against India by six wickets with 13 balls to spare, outplaying and out-thinking the favourites.
Somehow Sri Lankan managed to win at a canter, despite taking only four wickets.
"I guess the plan was always to get Morgan and Butler in as fast as possible, so I salute England's early handing over of wickets to the Aussies, it's all part of a grand design to score 120 off the last ten overs.
