&w=3840&q=100)
Jadeja deserved his own Headingley 2019 moment at Lord's, but India just could not muster enough resolve
Sport is funny. Some of them last mere minutes. Others can go on for days. And a few of them can end without an outright winner. Test cricket, designed to last five days, and not necessarily mandated to have a winner, thus, occupies a quirkier place than most.
Teams can blitz out of the traps, and in the very next moment, they can stumble. Sides can be pummeled to the mat, but they can still find a way to reestablish a solid base and throw punches. And all of those idiosyncrasies came through across five riveting days at the Lord's Cricket Ground.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
At the start of day five, the game was tantalisingly poised. England had momentum after Sunday, but India had a more than decent chunk of batting left. . But three hours later, it felt like India, against all the odds and against cricketing logic and wisdom, might actually have a prayer.
Also Read | Shubman Gill reflects on crucial moments that cost India Lord's Test: 'We could have...'
And that was down to just one man: Ravindra Jadeja. So often criticised – sometimes for his bowling, sometimes for his batting, sometimes just for the sake of it. But in north-west London on Monday, he was a cut above his teammates. Not for the first time ever, and probably not for the last time either.
He did not begin the day batting, but was out there fairly promptly, having watched Jofra Archer send Rishabh Pant's off stump cartwheeling. KL Rahul was trapped lbw by Ben Stokes soon after and that started a procession of tentativeness and consequent departures to the dressing room, halted only by the lunch break.
A fightback for the ages at the 'Home of Cricket'
At that stage, India were eight down, and light years away from even contemplating a win. Bit by bit, though, Jadeja made them believe. Every single taken injected a bit of hope. Every single denied hinted at a player who knew exactly what was required. And every boundary smuggled (although there were not many of them) indicated that this Indian team may have been down, but not out, as long as Jadeja was at the crease.
And so it proved for more than four hours. Jadeja kept thwarting each attempted inroad England plotted. He kept trusting his lower-order partners to keep a few deliveries out, and they duly obliged. Until…Jasprit Bumrah finally lost patience and perished to an ungainly swipe.
Mohammed Siraj then took over. Showcasing the sort of determination and gritty technique India would have hoped from their top and middle order, especially with the game there to be won. Only to be denied right at the end by a freakish dismissal.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Also Read | 'Heartbreaking finish but proud of the fight': Jadeja, Siraj hailed for fighting spirit at Lord's
All while Jadeja stood there at the other end, unbeaten and unblemished. So much in the zone that he did not even do his usual sword celebration for his fifty, and so consumed by the moment that he could scarcely believe the cruel end that had been meted out, despite doing everything he humanly could, and doing everything those around him could not.
Fights through to fifty, but the sword stays in its sheath.#RavindraJadeja knows the job's not over🤞🏻#ENGvIND 👉 3rd TEST, DAY 5 | LIVE NOW on JioHotstar 👉 https://t.co/DTsJzJLwUc pic.twitter.com/Hig4Y61i8N — Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) July 14, 2025
There has, in fact, been a long-running joke in Indian cricketing circles – that there are things in this world only Jadeja can do. A lifetime ago, when MS Dhoni used to be active on Twitter, he had given Jadeja the 'sir' moniker. Jovially, of course.
But with every passing year, with every comeback after being written off, Jadeja and Indian fans began believing in that narrative too – that Jadeja, really, could do things no one else could. With the bat, with the ball, in the field, and when thrust into the deepest of deep ends. Just like at Lord's on Monday.
This was backs-against-the-wall stuff. England were up for the fight, the crowd was raucous too, and the series was up to be seized as well. Ben Stokes was bowling as if he owed a debt to the cricketing world for his lack of runs. Archer was hurling them down like a man who had lost time to make up for. Brydon Carse, who has quickly become one of the pantomime villains this series, was breathing fire. And Jadeja almost outlasted all of them.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
There will, of course, be those who argue Jadeja should have played a few more strokes. Or that the all-rounder, in hindsight, should not have exposed Siraj to the off-spin of Bashir at all. Or taken a few more singles earlier in the innings.
This Test, though, moving only in inches on the final day, and defined by even finer margins, perhaps demanded Jadeja to make it a battle of heart, and of who wanted it more. Because deep down, he would have known how badly he wanted it, and that if England wanted to take over that mantle, they would have to run through him and over him.
Left stranded after Siraj's bizarre dismissal
But in the end, Jadeja and his resistance was rendered a moot point, and it came down to a bizarre dribble off Siraj's bat and the subsequent clunking of the stumps. The sort of scenario that, if you tried to recreate a thousand times, might only materialise once or twice. Just like Jadeja's defiance.
Ravindra Jadeja's unbeaten 61 went in vain as England defeated India by 22 runs in the third Test at Lord's. Reuters
And that is what will hurt India the most. All they needed was to ensure Jadeja's heroics did not go in vain. Such knocks, such acts of valour and vigil, do not come around often. There is a reason these are treated as once-in-a-lifetime performances. This could have been Jadeja's Stokes-at-Headingley-2019 moment. This probably should have been. But India just could not muster enough resolve when they really needed it.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Sadly, for Jadeja and India, this will now forever have an asterisk attached to it. And it will remain one of those instances that fans, who watched it in the flesh and on television sets around the world, will look back on in a few years' time, and wonder what might have been.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Deccan Herald
4 hours ago
- Deccan Herald
Pant on course for fourth Test
The vice-captain injured his left index finger while keeping during the first innings of the Lord's Test, and although he batted, Dhruv Jurel donned the gloves for much of the match. Pant, who didn't bat nor keep, just took part in the regular exercises, did a bit of running and played a game of foot volley.
Deccan Herald
4 hours ago
- Deccan Herald
Solly Adam's heart beats for Asian cricketers
Manchester: Talk to Indian cricketers of yore who played in the County Championship or leagues in the United Kingdom, and a vast majority will have something great to say about Suleman Adam, popularly known as Solly Adam. 'Solly bhai is the reason why I could play County cricket,' 'Solly bhai took care of us like we were his family,' 'I struggled to find a place to stay, and Solly bhai accommodated me,'… the tributes keep pouring in from legends like Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, and even from superstars from across the border like Javed Miandad, Imran Khan, Abdul Qadir and Iqbal Indian cricketers may not find English cricket appealing as most national-level cricketers make a decent living due to the strong domestic structure and high-rewarding IPL, but there was a time when making a trip to the UK was necessary for a majority of them. Cricket in England took place during the home off-season, and Indians and Pakistanis, who were largely free then when their countries didn't play here, hoped to find a team to further their cricketing education. .It wasn't difficult for the established names, but for a lot of others who aspired to play Tier 2 or Tier 3 cricket during the weekend to earn some extra pounds, they needed an 'agent' who could facilitate that. Also, playing in England boosted their resume, and performances here enhanced their chances of a national call-up too. And Solly, whose family migrated to the UK in the late 1960s, did that selflessly, instrumental in getting over 400 Asian cricketers in play in the leagues here without expecting or taking a quid in return..'The journey started with Rahul Mankad,' Solly tells DH at his sports store in Dewsbury, a town in Yorkshire which is an hour's drive from Manchester. 'Rahul came first here and he was playing for Clark Eaton. So, I went to meet him and invited him over to my place. During dinner, he said he had a lot of his friends like Karsan Ghavri, Suru Nayak and Vijay Mohanraj who would like to come and play in England and asked if I could fix them up at some clubs. So I scouted around and fixed those guys for various teams as in those days, there were no restrictions on the number of players in each team. Next year, I bought four more players from India and the numbers just kept adding up over time,' said Solly, who still runs the petrol bunk started in the early 1970s where legends like Laxman worked during their stay in the UK. .Amongst the biggest names, and a history-making one, Adam brought to these shores was Tendulkar, the first player not born in Yorkshire to represent the county, in 1992. Till the 19-year-old Tendulkar's arrival then, Yorkshire had a strict policy of selecting players only from the county, and Adam had to move mountains to get the club to change its hard-nosed policy..'I met Sachin during my son's wedding in 1990 and asked him if he wanted to play league cricket in the UK. He said he didn't mind. I first brought Vinod Kambli, who was playing for 25 pounds a week. Sachin wanted 100 pounds. At that time, Yorkshire changed their rules and signed an Australian, but he pulled out. So I went to the Yorkshire committee and said if they could sign an Australian, why not an Indian or Pakistani? We had a lot of arguments, and I had to keep travelling from Dewsbury to Leeds. Eventually, they agreed and asked me who I recommended. I instantly said Sachin Tendulkar..'I rang Sachin, and he refused. Then I spoke to Sunil (Gavaskar), who was in Australia, where Sachin was playing. Even the Australians were enamoured by Sachin because Bradman said watching a young Sachin bat reminded him of himself. That news was carried big even in all the newspapers here in the UK, and interest grew (by then, Tendulkar had scored his maiden Test century here and saved the game). After I spoke to Sunil, he spoke to Sachin, and Sachin rang me up saying, 'Solly bhai, I'm coming.' He was the first Asian to come here.'.What endeared Solly, which has been chronicled in the book 'Solly Adam: Beyond Boundaries' by Vara Vantapati, to everyone who met him was his hospitality and humbleness. Although he was a businessman, he never expected a penny from the players for getting deals with county clubs. For many from modest backgrounds who found the city and language hard to tackle, he provided food and accommodation. During weekdays, the players returned the favour by working in his petrol bunks, an organic development.
The Hindu
4 hours ago
- The Hindu
The icing on the cake while covering a sport
More than a decade ago, my professor at journalism school advised us to always carry a few chocolates or an energy bar while we were on the field. This was to counter the uncertain world of day-to-day reporting, where both availability of food and windows to eat are erratic. However, I took up sports journalism, where a day is more structured. We know of events beforehand, and we usually cover a sport which has designated breaks for lunch and tea, and of late, even dinner. This has given us the opportunity to explore multiple culinary worlds. So much so that the lunch and tea spreads rank second in the list of our curiosities, just below the great sport itself. There are those who consider catering at stadiums as an enabler and not a main event. It helps scribes do their jobs without having to worry about filling their stomachs. It is a complimentary service, not a right. But cricket in India — at least at a majority of the stadiums — has such good arrangements for food that it has become an integral part of our experience. In this, I can say with authority — and can speak for a lot of others too — that Chennai and its iconic venue Chepauk ranks the best. It did when I worked there from 2012 to 2015, and it still did when I went back last year. During IPL 2024, one favourite dish was kalan pattani milagu peratal (mushrooms and green peas cooked in crushed black pepper and onion masala). It was rich and layered, in line with its long name and elaborate explanation. Bengaluru, my home city; Indore, widely regarded as the street food capital of India; and Ahmedabad, which I have visited often in the past two years, offer excellent spreads too. In fact, cricket reporters regularly upload photos of 'today's menu' on social media platforms, and two enthusiastic journalists even started a web portal to document each venue and the food it had to offer. A month ago, I landed in Leeds, United Kingdom, to cover the opening match of the ongoing five-match Test series between England and India. I had, of course, packed my usual set of ready-to-eat meals, but I was very much looking forward to the lunch and tea buffets at the famed cricket ground in Headingley. Mac and cheese and one boiled vegetable welcomed me on day one. With that, my bubble, which had swollen disproportionately because of years of pampering, burst immediately. The local press corps was upset with the cuisine too, and though things got better in the days ahead and the desserts were outstanding throughout, the first afternoon was a rough reminder that catering was indeed a service and not a right. My colleagues from other Indian media houses, who had past experience of covering cricket in England, assured me that I would be better off in Birmingham, the venue for the second Test. The West Midlands city has a significant Asian population and I was desperate to see that rich diversity reflect in my plate. The Industrial Revolution-era megapolis did not disappoint, with the first afternoon offering masala chickpea salad, Indian chopped salad, slow cooked carrots and broccoli, and home-made flavoured bread. To round it off, there was chocolate mint with chocolate mousse and egg custard tart, tickling my taste buds no end. Wimbledon, my last stop of the work tour, was predictable but perfect. From the menu to the chefs to the counter-managers in the media cafeteria, nothing had changed much since my first visit in 2019. The world famous strawberries and cream was inflation-proof from 2010 to 2024 at £2.50, and rose by 20 pennies only this edition. And like a champion tennis player's repeatable technique, the catering at the All England Club delivers every single time. A great service that everyone rightfully enjoys.
