England vs India: Cricket's infuriating 6.42pm rule that meant a day of epic sport ended in farce

New York Times

2 days ago

Only Test cricket can provide a day of extraordinary sporting drama and then deny a full-house of more than 27,000 spectators a result.
Only a five-match Test series can offer 24 days of the most compelling cricket and then cut short the action and come back for a 25th day with the result in the balance and the game nearing its natural thrilling conclusion.
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The final Test of one of the best series in years was on a knife-edge at The Oval in south London on Sunday when the umpires and ground-staff decided a short, sharp shower of rain at 5.29pm was enough to rob those spectators of what was building up to be the most exciting and fitting of finales.
England looked to be taking their redefinition of the Test run-chase to another level on the penultimate day by romping towards their improbable target of 374.
Then India threatened to turn the match and the series on its head by dismissing both Harry Brook and Joe Root, who had added a masterful 195 off just 211 balls, and rendering England near strokeless with a Herculean bowling effort.
The stage could not be more perfectly set. England, on 339 for six, needed just 35 more for a 3-1 series win, but where earlier the runs were flowing now they had all but dried up and Jamie Smith and Jamie Overton were struggling to get the ball off the square.
India, meanwhile, were being roared on by their large number of supporters and knew they had only effectively to take another three wickets, with England's injured bowler Chris Woakes in his whites in the dressing room but with his left-arm in a sling.
Bad light and rain seemed only to have brought a temporary stop to proceedings but then it emerged regulations stated play had to resume by 6.42pm, the scheduled close of play.
The rain had stopped and the skies were beginning to clear but, at 6.03pm, head groundsman Lee Fortis, who had clashed with India coach Gautam Gambhir before the game, told the umpires his staff could not clear up the ground in time for play to resume within the next 39 minutes. So that was that.
It is infuriating why that had to be the case. Why could we not delay the resumption a little longer and then try to give spectators who had paid between £95 and £160 for their day at the cricket a proper finish? There seems no explanation other than 'rules are rules'.
That is a desperately bad look for the ultimate form of the game at a time when it is threatened like never before by the rise of short-form cricket and the franchises. Not helped by what appeared to be complete inaction from Fortis and his team in the minutes leading up to the announcement that this absorbing drama would go to a final day that should last less than an hour whoever wins.
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It says everything for the remarkable resilience of cricket fans that the majority in the crowd seemed simply to shrug their shoulders, say 'that's cricket for you' and make their way out into the streets of south London. But it is not good enough.
A friend of mine told me his 20-year-old son had only recently been getting into Test cricket, so thrilling has this series been, but was left utterly deflated in front of his TV on Sunday evening when it became clear that play was off for the day.
'What a wasted opportunity,' said my friend, a lifelong cricket fan. 'My son has got into Test cricket big-time this summer but he said, 'What an anti-climax' when they called it off. He can't watch tomorrow so he won't be able to see how it all plays out.'
It was somehow inevitable that as soon as play was called off for the day the weather improved and by 6.45pm or so play would have been perfectly possible.
Lovely evening at the Oval now… pic.twitter.com/fjGzfghZyD
— Paul Newman (@Paul_Newman66) August 3, 2025
It does not get dark at this time of year until around 8.30pm and, in any case, there are floodlights at the Oval and all England's major grounds. There should be no reason why play should not continue under artificial light. Test cricket cannot afford a farce like this.
'Still 20 minutes away from possible start time and everyone has their sunglasses on at the train station,' posted former England fast bowler and now commentator Stuart Broad on X. 'Felt the supporters deserved to see a finish to that Test today. Felt a lazy decision to call it off at 6pm in my opinion. I wonder who makes it?'
At least former England captain Sir Alastair Cook saw the bright side. 'This benefits England massively,' said Cook on the BBC's Test Match Special. 'It is a hammer blow for India. The atmosphere would have been unbelievable for India tonight. They were so on top. The only way England could get a run was a leg-bye.'
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The crowd at least got most of their money's worth on the fourth day before the powers that be, in their wisdom, robbed them of a finale.
Brook made the best of his 10 Test hundreds, even better than his triple century in Pakistan, and his first in the fourth innings of a Test, reaching three figures off just 91 balls.
It only ended in bizarre fashion when he came down the pitch to Akash Deep and saw his bat fly out of his hands, Rishabh Pant-style, with the ball looping gently to the covers.
And Root made one of the most emotional of his 39 Test hundreds, taking out of his pocket one of the white headbands that have been made for this Test in memory of his mentor, the late great Graham Thorpe, and looking to the skies in tribute.
But India refused to be beaten. Where once an England win looked a formality and it was all about the ease with which they were racing to the second highest run-chase in their history, everything suddenly changed, as only it can do in Test cricket.
At the centre of that was the indefatigable figure of Mohammed Siraj, the last fast bowler standing in this series on either side to play in all five Tests once Woakes went down injured on the first day here.
It looked as though Siraj had cost his side victory when he gave Brook a life on 19, treading on the boundary foam after catching him and instead handing him another six.
But Siraj kept running in all day and added another 26 overs to his exhaustive tally in this series while playing the role of his former captain Virat Kohli in whipping up the Indian supporters in the crowd to provide more noise.
We can only come back on Monday now to see which one of these sides will come out on top and whether England will have their best series win under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.
Or whether India will have what would be a deserved share of the series. It is just a crying shame we did not know the outcome by now.