For three days there was little to choose between the teams. Sparks had flown on Saturday evening, so tense and tight was the contest, with scores level on first innings for only the ninth time in Test history. That, too, is how things ended on day four, after a dramatic last half-hour in which England, up against it and sliding to defeat, took three late wickets, including that of India’s captain, Shubman Gill.
The Lord’s crowd, usually so restrained, shed their inhibitions late in the day under instruction from Joe Root at slip, and, as though the sun had got to everyone, they roared their approval as Ben Stokes administered the full stop by knocking the nightwatchman Akash Deep’s off stump clean out of the ground with the final ball of the day. It was a tremendous end to another gripping offering in a series that keeps on giving.
Stokes raised his finger high in salute and marched his team off at the close with everything still to play for, after Brydon Carse had dismissed Karun Nair and Gill in consecutive overs, running in with pulsing rhythm from the Pavilion End. Nair, first of all, left a ball that nipped back and cannoned into his back pad, and Gill fell at last to the plan England had anticipated working against him all along, when pinned in front to another sharp off cutter.
Yashasvi Jaiswal had fallen to Jofra Archer’s opening spell without scoring and had Chris Woakes clung on to a sharp return catch from KL Rahul on five, India’s position would have been more vulnerable still. As it is, they need a further 135 runs with six wickets in hand and the outcome is impossible to call. The fifth day is already sold out and, as at Edgbaston, there are sure to be large numbers of India supporters among them. It may be a tense affair with the pitch showing temperamental signs.
It is drier than the one on which South Africa chased a much larger fourth-innings total with some comfort in the World Test Championship final, and there is uneven bounce, especially bowling from the Nursery End. Archer, despite the wicket of Jaiswal, did not find the right length from it often enough with the new ball, and if he and the other seamers do so on the final day, it could be a tricky chase, even though one partnership of note should see India home.
After three days of nip-and-tuck action, it appeared as though a distinct pattern had started to emerge as England’s top-order brittleness, a brain fade from Harry Brook and a collapse either side of the tea interval had gifted India control of the match. Bowled out for 192 — “bowled” being the apt word, with seven batsmen having their stumps rattled — no player passed 50 and the last six wickets fell for 38 in 20 overs, four of them to the tall off spinner Washington Sundar, who used his drift to great effect.
Sundar’s figures of four for 22 are the best recorded by an India spinner in a Test in England since 2002
GETTY
The first hour offered brilliant cricket, with India trying to recreate the intensity of the third evening, when tempers had flared and Zak Crawley and Gill had engaged in some finger wagging. England were desperate to see off Bumrah, which they did as much through luck as good judgment, and it was Siraj who set things rolling, sending back Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope cheaply.
Bumrah extracted troubling uneven bounce, which meant Duckett took a more aggressive approach against Siraj. He played one scoop for four, but two balls later pulled to mid-on, whereupon Siraj charged towards Duckett in animated celebration, roaring in Duckett’s face as the batsman made his way off. Pope was then beaten by a nip-backer after Siraj tightened his line and targeted the stumps.
Quite how Bumrah did not take a wicket in the first hour is a mystery as he located the right length unerringly. At one point, Crawley hurriedly withdrew his bottom hand from the bat in pain, so hard was he hit on the glove, and he survived a fine inside edge that went perilously close to leg stump, while Pope’s only boundary flew off the shoulder of the bat and over the slips.
England’s resistance with the bat ended when Stokes, attempting a sweep, was bowled by Sundar
ASHLEY WESTERN/SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL
Nitish Kumar Reddy replaced Bumrah on the hour and snared Crawley to one of those infuriating dismissals that continue to provoke questions about the opener’s willingness to learn and improve. Having seen off Bumrah, things were set to get easier, but a loose drive to an innocuous ball ended up in the hands of Jaiswal in the gully.
Brook arrived and embarked upon his own adventure, eager to attack the change bowlers. There was nothing wrong with his intentions, as two scooped fours and a glorious straight drive for six off consecutive deliveries from Deep suggested, but when Gill moved his boundary fielder finer to block out the scoop, there was no merit in Brook’s response the following over, when he aimed a sweep and lost his middle stump.
Brook’s was not the only poor shot of the innings — Root and Stokes, later on, took the wrong options to Sundar — but it was the shot where the balance between risk and reward was most out of kilter. The ball he got out to was, in effect, a straight half-volley just like the one he had whipped through mid-wicket the previous over off Reddy, and a straighter bat would have been a better offering again.
Root and Stokes had to dig in at this point, and mustered a hard-fought 67-run partnership, helped by Gill starting the second session with the wrong bowlers from the wrong ends. Dhruv Jurel was given a torrid time behind the stumps, conceding 25 byes, and eventually Gill turned to Sundar, as it looked as though Root and Stokes had weathered the storm.
But Sundar, omitted from the opening Test of the series at Headingley, is not to be underestimated. He has played only a handful of Tests because of Ravichandran Ashwin, but in their final series together against New Zealand, it was the younger man who looked the more dangerous, taking 11 wickets in the Pune Test. Brought into this series to stiffen the lower order and offer a second spin option to the ineffective Ravindra Jadeja, he now showed his worth.
In 12.1 overs either side of tea he bowled beautifully, finding considerable drift because of the amount of spin he imparts on the ball. He also used the slope intelligently, which allowed him to beat the right-handers’ outside edge, and dismissed Root, uncharacteristically (because he is such a good player of spin) bowled behind his legs; Jamie Smith, bowled when beaten on the outside edge; Stokes, bowled sweeping, and Shoaib Bashir, flummoxed by the drift. Tall and accurate and good enough to play as a top-order batsman too, what wouldn’t England give for a 25-year-old spinning all-rounder of his quality.