The tempers flaring between England and India at Lord's only added to the drama, writes Ben Gardner.
This series is well and truly alive because of one cricketer, and that cricketer is Zak Crawley. And no, not, as the memes and facts have it, because his second-innings 22 ultimately proved equal to the difference between the two sides, but because of his antics two runs into that knock. The first three days minus six balls of this Test could have been an email. The next two days rivalled a Tarantino film for violence, drama and swear count.
Up until that point on the third evening, the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, closely contested as it was, had had a feeling of battle deferred. Jasprit Bumrah was held back from a Test match despite being fully fit. Both sides spent much of their time in the field in a holding pattern, waiting for a ball new or changed to come to their aid. There were massages on the field of play, hold ups for unofficial drinks breaks with minutes to go until official drinks breaks, for outfielders to receive treatment with one wicket left to take. There had been batting collapses borne of abdication. At Headingley, India’s tail were utterly devoid of the fight they would later summon in buckets. Perhaps a lack of urgency was the tactic in the next Test, the time taken out of the game a wicket-taking weapon. India batted on figuring England wouldn’t stick around in any case. They were right, the hosts bowled out neither trying to chase nor save the game, a team already shrugging their shoulders and moving onto the next one.
Even right before that Crawley needle, India displayed a strange sluggishness. Here was a chance to breathe fire before stumps, to extend Bumrah’s time with the new ball. Instead, Washington Sundar went to the bathroom with Bumrah about to begin his innings and over half an hour left in the day. They added two runs in the last three overs, levelling the score but losing the opportunity. Still, at 6.24pm on Saturday, July 12, with England and India locked tight at one Test and 387 runs apiece, the contest ramped up.
What did it was England trying not to play. Crawley felt that one over was quite enough, thank you. Ben Duckett was content to sit on his bat. Crawley pulled out of his stance, and then did so again. Then Bumrah hit the middle of the bat, and Crawley felt the sting in his hand, instantly calling for the physio, before using the stricken mitt to squeeze water into his mouth. Shubman Gill told him to “grow some fucking balls”. Bumrah merely applauded sarcastically. No matter; Crawley had achieved his goal, and set the match alight in the process. The next evening it was nightwatchman Akash Deep, asking for protective equipment with minutes left, trying desperately to deny England another over. He could not, and four balls later Stokes smashed the stumps to set up an all-timer of a final day equation.
These were sledging campaigns intended not for mental disintegration but personal motivation. Whether or not Gill actively invoked Virat Kohli’s “60 overs of hell” war cry on the fourth morning, the effect was similar. Back in 2021, India began the final day well behind in the game, before a rousing stand between Bumrah and Mohammed Shami all of a sudden allowed them to declare nine balls after lunch. England were stunned and then skittled, India a pack of piranhas, snapping, biting, never letting England go.
Then, as now, it was Mohammed Siraj bearing the flag. He thrives as the attack leader, as evidenced by his vastly superior record when Bumrah isn’t in the side, and he literally led the charge here, barging Ben Duckett and getting in England’s faces. The next morning, it was Jofra Archer telling Rishabh Pant to “charge that”, India’s ebullient wicketkeeper having angered England’s fastest with a one-handed advance and swat down the ground, paying the price two balls later as his off-stump cartwheeled behind him. Archer admitted after play that he wasn’t proud of the spray he gave Pant. But he admitted it with a smile.
He also explained how this was a deliberate ploy from England, to fire themselves up as much as anything. “It was a collective effort to be honest. We all came together as a group yesterday and said, 'We're a bit too nice'. When we go other places, some teams aren't as nice to us as we are to them so I guess we just tried to shift it. Who knows? I don't know if that's the reason, if that helped give us that extra buzz today in the field, I don't know.”
Washington Sundar had an important role to play in the soap opera. He had had one of his finest days on a cricket field on Sunday, taking four wickets, rattling England’s stumps over and over with skill and with bait. That evening, he dangled the red rag again. India would definitely win, he said, and he wanted to be the one to hit the winning runs. He wouldn’t manage a run of any description, coming out with victory still three figures in the distance, Archer and Ben Stokes in tandem. Brendon McCullum, on the balcony, sensed the moment, and signalled England to turn it up. Archer found the leading edge, flung himself to his right, and clung on with one hand. Then came another spray, the long-absent quick losing match fee percentage points and adding to his legion of adoring England fans with each volley.
Sundar had been brought to the crease by Stokes’ dismissal of KL Rahul, sawn off in a fashion that instantly evoked this England side’s first great chase denial against India, a trio that also includes Tom Hartley’s Hyderabad heist. Then, it was Kohli that held the key. Both times Stokes was the bowler, and on both the appeal came with a hamstring-testing, knee-buckling desperation and certainty.
Stokes and Rahul had provided an example of the close ties between some of the players on each side before the series, joining forces and sharing jokes in a Squid Game-style six-hitting contest for their sponsor Red Bull. Here, former IPL alliances were not just ignored, but used as ammunition. Harry Brook’s snubbing of cricket’s grandest T20 stage was taken with an acknowledgement of how his Indian fans, with whom he already had a conflicted relationship, would likely not understand. Now he chided Nitish Kumar Reddy, his former Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate rendered shotless by the situation, that he was “not at the IPL now”. “Jaddu’s got to score them all,” Brook said. It was almost prophetic.
And yet these are scars that will be felt mostly in the scoreline rather than in the soul. As Siraj slumped, the middle of his bat having been his own undoing, Joe Root and Zak Crawley peeled away from the celebrations to offer their condolences. Soon Brook would join them, and then the rest of the England team.
Gill, who has already nailed the statesman and batting bits of captaincy, if not quite the rest, once again assumed his role as Test cricket’s global figurehead. At Edgbaston, even having won, he led the campaign for improving the game’s conditions, and was rewarded with a Lord’s pitch that, in its own Lord’s way, had everything. Here, he explained why the needle is so vital.
“It makes for an even more exciting Test series,” he said. “When you're in the heat of the moment there's so many emotions involved. Both teams are competitive and you're playing to win. There is going to be moments where there is going to be a bit of heat.”
Now, after the heat, the light and the space, the pause and the room for breath that is a vital part of any Test saga. Both teams will rest, reflect and regather. At Old Trafford, you fancy it won’t take three days for the first barb to land.
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