The 2025 Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy reached a thrilling conclusion on the morning of Day Five at The Oval, with Mohammed Siraj ripping Gus Atkinson's off stump out of the ground with just seven runs to spare. With the series-drawn at 2-2, here are the marks out of 10 for every England player involved.
Ben Duckett - 8
5 matches, 462 runs at 51.33, 1 hundred, HS: 149
Kicking off the series with a crucial knock at Headingley, Duckett was part of four key top-order stands during the series. That included a 166-run partnership with Zak Crawley in Manchester, and most importantly an hour batted out at the end of day three at The Oval. There was also plenty of needly featuring Duckett throughout, with Mohammed Siraj punished for a send-off directed towards the England opener at Lord's, and Akash Deep criticised for sarcastically putting his arm around him in the fifth Test.
Zak Crawley - 4
5 matches, 290 runs at 32.22, 0 hundreds, HS: 84
A couple of decent knocks for Crawley this series, but his performances and numbers are still well below where he will want to be. His highlight was an 84 in Manchester, and had he not been dismissed off the penultimate ball of the day in the final innings at The Oval, it would have been a flawless job to see out the biggest hour of a tough chase.
Ollie Pope - 6
5 matches, 411 runs at 41.10, 1 hundred, HS: 106
Pope's hundred at Headingley was one of the most important of his career. Coming under the pressure Jacob Bethell waiting in the wings, against a top quality opposition in the opening game of a marquee series, this was England's vice-captain putting down a marker. There were few follow-ups to that innings however, and while he scored 71 out of a score of 669 in Manchester, his second-innings record looks even bleaker than it did at the start of the series. His 27 in the fifth Test at The Oval was the sixth-highest in his 61-Test career.
Joe Root - 10
5 matches, 537 runs at 67.12, 3 hundreds, HS: 150
2 wickets at 122.00, SR: 171.50, BBI: 1-20
A stunning series for England's greatest, where he elevated himself to conversations concerning all-time greats from history. His summer was peppered with hundreds, going back-to-back from Lord's to Manchester before scoring another at The Oval. Vanishingly few have made batting and scoring runs look so easy for so long as Root has now done.
Harry Brook - 7.5
5 matches, 481 runs at 53.44, 2 hundreds, HS: 158
Brook's final knock of the series was unarguably his best. Coming in with more than 300 to chase in tricky conditions against a rampant Mohammed Siraj, he turned the chase on its head, knocking out the runs without bursting out of his shell to pull back the game decisively into England's hands. Add into that his mammoth partnership with Jamie Smith and boundary-fuelled 99 at Leeds, his series numbers look more than healthy. And more than that, his big innings came in genuinely game-changing scenarios.
Ben Stokes - 8
4 matches, 304 runs at 43.42, 1 hundred, HS: 141
17 wickets at 25.23, SR: 49.41, BBI: 5-72
This was Stokes' best series as a player since his pre-captaincy epic days. He bowled more overs than ever before in a series, and was across the board England's best bowler. Having struggled with the bat for the first three Tests, he hit his first Test hundred for two years in Manchester, and battled through the pain in an attempt to force a result on Day Five. Stokes' finding his spark again, as long as his body allows, is an important picture in England's Ashes build-up which is starting to become clear.
Jamie Smith - 8.5
5 matches, 434 runs at 62.00, 1 hundred, HS: 184*
If last summer marked Jamie Smith's emergence, this one marked him out as a genuine prodigy for the future. Outrageous stroke-making coupled with a hunger for runs and ability to knuckle down and score them, the record-breaking 184* he scored at Edgbaston arguably wasn't his most impressive innings of the series. He scored a clutch 44* at Headingley as England wobbled towards the back-end of the chase, as well as a 51 at Lord's which – with such a marginal result – was a big part of the difference between winning and losing.
Chris Woakes - 4.5
5 matches, 11 wickets at 52.18, SR: 98.72, BBI: 3-84
64 runs at 10.66, HS: 38
It looks increasingly likely that this series will be the last in which Woakes will feature. Put to one side the shoulder which will reportedly require surgery after an unfortunately-angled dive on the outfield at The Oval, and that he likely won't go to Australia through injury or selection. Woakes is 36, and his powers looked on the wane during this series. He did enough to keep himself at the head of England's attack – itself with several questions still to answer – but the threatening balls became more and more spaced out, the pace dwindled and the energy deadened. His best outing of the series came on his home turf in Birmingham, where his Day One numbers didn't reflect how good his spell was. Nevertheless, to watch him during the series felt like a brilliant career winding down.
Brydon Carse - 6
4 matches, 9 wickets at 28.66, SR: 103.33, BBI: 3-80
164 runs at 27.33, HS: 56
Carse spent the first two Tests of the series opening the bowling, a role which differed from where he found his success at the start of the summer. Jofra Archer's inclusion at Lord's made space for a better-looking attack, with Carse playing a pivotal role picking up two quick wickets late on Day Four. At Manchester, his fatigue was evident from playing all four Tests on the bounce, and he hardly bowled on the final day. All in all, against a powerful batting lineup, with a ball which caused both teams problems during the series, Carse was passed the assignment.
Jofra Archer - 8
2 matches, 9 wickets at 28.66, SR: 59.00, BBI: 3-55
Two Test matches played in a row, a wicket in his first over at Lord's, a faster spell than in 2019, nothing more could have been asked from Archer's glorious return.
Josh Tongue - 7
3 matches, 19 wickets at 29.05, SR: 40.10, BBI: 5-125
Tongue crept to the top of England's wicket-taking standards with eight wickets at The Oval, albeit across erratic spells. His first ball of the match was Steve Harmison-esque, halfway down the pitch and miles down the leg side – the first of several in the game. His good balls, however, were close to unplayable, and his five-wickets added to his tally from running through India's tail twice earlier in the series.
Gus Atkinson - 7
1 match, 8 wickets at 20.00, SR: 36.50, BBI: 5-33
Five wickets and a run out in his first innings into the series couldn't have gone much better for Atkinson in front of his home crowd. He found life tougher against Washington Sundar targeting the deep midwicket boundary in the second innings, however.
Shoaib Bashir - 6.5
3 matches, 10 wickets at 52.18, SR: 98.72, BBI: 3-84
Despite only playing the first three Tests before copping a blow which fractured his little finger badly enough to require surgery, Bashir finishes the series as its leading wicket-taker among spinners. He bowled a marathon of overs across the first two Tests, getting largely tidy returns for his efforts, in Tests which England opted to bowl first on both times.
Liam Dawson - 4
1 match, 1 wicket at 140.00, SR: 372.00, BBI: 1-45
26 runs at 26.00, HS: 26
Recalled after more than eight years out of the side, the weight of expectation on England's leading domestic spinner didn't quite match up to his returns. He picked up a wicket seven balls into his comeback, but didn't strike again in the game, and bowled tidily without being threatening on the final day. Stokes' injury
Jamie Overton - 2
1 match, 2 wickets at 72.00, SR: 114.00, BBI: 2-98
One match of the series for Overton, in which he went wicketless in the first innings before getting Akash Deep as nightwatch after he'd reached a half-century, and Dhruv Jurel with an outswinger.
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