Farcical scenes as England baffled by glory-chasing Indian batsmen
A troublesome left leg and a fresh problem in his right shoulder failed to deter the England captain, who snared KL Rahul for 90 on the last morning of the fourth Test to give his side hope of moving into an unassailable 3-1 series lead.
Jofra Archer then dismissed Shubman Gill for 103 on the stroke of lunch but Joe Root dropping Ravindra Jadeja from the next ball proved crucial as he and Washington Sundar batted out the rest of the day.
However, there were farcical scenes at the finish on Sunday when it became clear there would be no winner as India's batters elected against shaking hands with 15 overs left — the earliest opportunity a draw could be agreed — so both could get their hundreds.
'You want to get a Test hundred against Harry Brook?' Stokes said.
Root and Brook provided buffet bowling to speed things along, with Jadeja getting to his ton first and and Sundar followed to signal the end of proceedings, with India on 4-424 and a lead of 113.
Brook's bowling added to the drama as the cricket world quickly sided with the Indian batsmen in their hunt for the glory of a century.
'When you have batted 50 overs to save a Test match, you are perfectly entitled to seek a cherished landmark. And it is good to see that everyone is in the batters' camp on this one,' Harsha Bhogle wrote.
'I have no issue with Stokes wanting to go off but I hope young Harry Brook, when he has a quiet moment to himself, will be a bit disappointed with what he did.' Jadeja celebrates his well-earned ton late in the draw. Credit: AAP
Former England captain Nasser Hussain said he did not have a problem with India's tactics but 'England seemed to have a problem with it'.
'They were a little bit tired, tired bowlers, tired legs, they wanted to get off,' he said.
'The two lads have worked hard to get into the 80s and 90s — they wanted Test match hundreds.
'Stokes didn't have to bowl Brook and it looked a bit silly at the end there but we make far too much of these things.
'They played well, they deserved the draw, they deserved to be there at the end.'
Another ex-England skipper in Alastair Cook also felt it was 'the right decision to carry on'.
'Five years down the line you look at the scorecard you see two brilliant hundreds to save the game, plus obviously Gill's as well,' he said.
'It will be forgotten about, Harry Brook's 37mph (60km/h) ball.'
With the fifth Test getting under way on Thursday, much of the focus will likely centre on Stokes' availability after he was left weary and wounded in Manchester.
He battled cramp in his left leg when batting on Friday and reported general soreness on Saturday, which meant he did not bowl as Rahul and Gill took India from 2-0 to 2-174 overnight.
Stokes returned to the fray on the final morning and made the breakthrough with his 20th delivery. Rahul was beaten by a nip-backer that thudded into his knee roll in front of middle stump.
Having moved on to a titanic 700 runs for the series, Gill brought up a fourth three-figure score of the trip off 228 balls with a push into the offside for a single.
By then, England had the second new ball, taken 40 minutes before lunch, and Archer claimed the prize wicket of Gill.
Root parried then dropped the rebound at head height after Jadeja flirted at a rising delivery from Archer first up.
With the pitch flattening out, Sundar and Jadeja grew increasingly confident through the afternoon.
Both teams must agree on the draw and England were clearly unhappy at the pair continuing, with Brook eventually called upon to send down some floaty off-spin while Root was kept on.
Jadeja got to his hundred in a blizzard of boundaries, eventually finishing on 107 not out, before Washington brought up his first Test century in Brook's next over before hands were shaken five overs after England had first offered them.
Stokes said: 'I'll always try and give everything that I possibly can. Try and run through a brick wall.
'I ask the guys up there to run through a brick wall for the team. I'll always try and do the same to try and lead by example in that sense.
'Bowling, being out in the field all that kind of stuff it is tough work, but pretty sore.'
Asked about his shoulder, he added: 'It's just a workload thing, got through a fair few amount of overs and just everything starts creeping up on you.
'I'll keep trying, keep going. As I always say to all the bowlers, pain is only an emotion.'
India have their own injury issues for the final Test with coach Gautam Gambhir revealing that Rishabh Pant, who was taken from the field on a cart on the first day, is ruled out with a foot fracture.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Spare us the whinging, England. The only thing embarrassing about Old Trafford was your tantrum
Increasingly, the balance of world opinion favours an Indian win in the final game. Why? Because the posturing that accompanied England's Bazball revolution has got to the point that even some among their countrymen are beginning to tire of it all. There is also the fact that the self-appointed great entertainers, all about saving Test cricket and making the game more enjoyable, are now increasingly inclined towards the kind of flinty attitudes held by teams rather more concerned with winning. The contradictions are piling up. Steve Smith, for one, picked this up during the Manchester Test. 'They have started to play a little bit differently in the last couple of weeks in terms of playing the situation, as opposed to going out and trying to be the entertainers that they said they wanted to be,' Smith told the BBC's Test Match Special. 'They are actually trying to win the games now which is perhaps different to what was said in their comments previously.' Loading Back in 2023, England's posturing included barbs about having effectively won a game at Edgbaston that they actually lost, then a flurry of indignation at Jonny Baristow's legitimate stumping by Alex Carey at Lord's. This was closely followed by dog whistling to ensure that Australia's players were given hell for the rest of the trip - the unpleasantness escalating even to death threats. But of course, England did not win the series nor regain the Ashes. Similarly, they are yet to win a series against India under Stokes and Brendon McCullum. And their white ball team has slipped a long way from the heights of the 2019 World Cup, and got to the point last year that McCullum was asked to take over the all-format program. So this year, with India and the Ashes both looming large, there has been a rhetorical shift towards more pragmatic cricket, but also more unpleasant behaviour on the field, in search of tactical advantage. Open discussion of team meetings where tactical sledging was discussed certainly raised the eyebrows of Australian players, seven years after their own descent into the infamous Cape Town Test and all the introspection that followed. Loading Members of that 2018 team are well aware that the path of sledging and unsavoury behaviour is a slippery one, leading to ever-greater animosity. They were amused to hear Stokes mimic their old phrase after a spiteful lord's Test match: 'At not one stage did we go over the line.' The Australians also recall that if the sledging didn't work, it would result in a backlash of commensurate fury from the likes of AB de Villiers or, some years earlier, Brian Lara. McCullum has even called in Gilbert Enoka, his old friend from the New Zealand cricket team and a longtime advisor to the All Blacks, to help shape the culture and identity of England's Ashes challengers. Enoka still has some work to do. Faced with an Indian side that did not want to dance to their tune, England looked churlish, bad-tempered and even a little bit brittle: happy and jovial when things go their way, but sulky and childish when they don't.
The Age
3 hours ago
- The Age
Spare us the whinging, England. The only thing embarrassing about Old Trafford was your tantrum
Increasingly, the balance of world opinion favours an Indian win in the final game. Why? Because the posturing that accompanied England's Bazball revolution has got to the point that even some among their countrymen are beginning to tire of it all. There is also the fact that the self-appointed great entertainers, all about saving Test cricket and making the game more enjoyable, are now increasingly inclined towards the kind of flinty attitudes held by teams rather more concerned with winning. The contradictions are piling up. Steve Smith, for one, picked this up during the Manchester Test. 'They have started to play a little bit differently in the last couple of weeks in terms of playing the situation, as opposed to going out and trying to be the entertainers that they said they wanted to be,' Smith told the BBC's Test Match Special. 'They are actually trying to win the games now which is perhaps different to what was said in their comments previously.' Loading Back in 2023, England's posturing included barbs about having effectively won a game at Edgbaston that they actually lost, then a flurry of indignation at Jonny Baristow's legitimate stumping by Alex Carey at Lord's. This was closely followed by dog whistling to ensure that Australia's players were given hell for the rest of the trip - the unpleasantness escalating even to death threats. But of course, England did not win the series nor regain the Ashes. Similarly, they are yet to win a series against India under Stokes and Brendon McCullum. And their white ball team has slipped a long way from the heights of the 2019 World Cup, and got to the point last year that McCullum was asked to take over the all-format program. So this year, with India and the Ashes both looming large, there has been a rhetorical shift towards more pragmatic cricket, but also more unpleasant behaviour on the field, in search of tactical advantage. Open discussion of team meetings where tactical sledging was discussed certainly raised the eyebrows of Australian players, seven years after their own descent into the infamous Cape Town Test and all the introspection that followed. Loading Members of that 2018 team are well aware that the path of sledging and unsavoury behaviour is a slippery one, leading to ever-greater animosity. They were amused to hear Stokes mimic their old phrase after a spiteful lord's Test match: 'At not one stage did we go over the line.' The Australians also recall that if the sledging didn't work, it would result in a backlash of commensurate fury from the likes of AB de Villiers or, some years earlier, Brian Lara. McCullum has even called in Gilbert Enoka, his old friend from the New Zealand cricket team and a longtime advisor to the All Blacks, to help shape the culture and identity of England's Ashes challengers. Enoka still has some work to do. Faced with an Indian side that did not want to dance to their tune, England looked churlish, bad-tempered and even a little bit brittle: happy and jovial when things go their way, but sulky and childish when they don't.
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
Surrey takes Women's T20 Blast as Grace Harris's 63 helps win title over Bears and sister Laura
Grace Harris has won a battle of the siblings, as her Surrey side beat the Warwickshire team of her sister, Laura, in the final of the Women's T20 Blast competition in England. The Australian pair both produced big-hitting knocks for their respective teams, but it was Grace's unbeaten 63 off 33 balls that helped Surrey become the inaugural women's champions, as they chased down a target of 154 in the 17th over. Grace Harris was the dominant performer in the final, with a brilliant innings that was 32 runs more than anyone else in the match. The Queenslander came out to bat in the seventh over, with her team behind the run-rate at 3-42. But the right-hander proceeded to flay the attack to all parts of the ground, changing the momentum of the game. She hit seven fours and two big sixes as none of the bowlers could slow her down. Do you have a story idea about women in sport? Email us abcsport5050@ Harris saw her team home with help from Sophia Dunkley (23 off 13) and Kira Chathli (16 off 9) — the latter scoring the winning runs with a clip off her legs for four. Earlier, the Warwickshire Bears had got off to a rough start, losing both openers with the first two overs. When Laura Harris came to the crease in the 11th over, the Bears had recovered to be 5-83 before immediately losing Amu Surenkumar to make it 6-83. But Harris produced a brilliant cameo of 25 off 11 balls, including three four and two sixes. She was caught off the bowling of Danielle Gregory at the start of the 15th over, by which time Warwickshire were 8-115. They finished the innings with 9-153 off their full 20 overs. "I was a bit nervous … you want her [Laura] to do well but you still want to win," Grace Harris told after the match. "I'm happy she got out when she did, I was a bit nervous — it could have been a 180 chase if she hung on there and she had a few damaging innings from that position earlier in the comp. "It's fantastic that we made sure we stayed with that run chase regardless of wickets lost [and] our bowlers did really well to set up that game."
