Janis Ian

Dom Bess fights style with substance in bid to establish himself as England’s long-term spinner

• The truth, according to Janis Ian in her haunting hit At Seventeen, is that this is the age one realises that the world isn’t fair - that “love was meant for beauty queens,” as she sang in 1975. In the radically unlikely event that somebody wrote a similar song about off-spinners, they could adjust that mark to 23. It’s about then that the game can get tough for tweakers, especially those who have been given a look at the top level. Suddenly, they’re not so sexy.Dom Bess turned 23 yesterday. It made the faith England’s selectors showed in him to continue as the Test team’s first choice twirler in the deciding Test this week all the more important. That he is the “spinner in possession” of the spot, in Chris Silverwood’s words after the second rubber, would have been comforting. Likewise, the coach’s belief that Somerset product “got better and better” before taking a vital wicket in the final flurry, bowling West Indies’ captain, Jason Holder, through the gate with a delivery that any spinner would dream of.