Three Things We Learned From Fourth Test Between England And India
India face Bumrah dilemma again
Jasprit Bumrah's back injury earlier this year led India to announce the outstanding fast bowler would only feature in three games of the England series in a bid to manage his workload.
And the world's top-ranked Test bowler made his third appearance of the campaign in Manchester.
But with the fifth Test starting on Thursday, there is little time for Bumrah to recover after a tiring haul of 2-112 in 33 overs -- the first time the 31-year-old has conceded more than a hundred runs in a Test innings.
Curiously, the only match India have so far won this series is the one Bumrah missed, when the tourists thrashed England by 336 runs in the second Test at Edgbaston.
Stokes' commitment poses problems for England
A captain who can lead with both bat and ball is a huge asset, but the England management may yet have to save Ben Stokes from himself with an Ashes tour of Australia on the horizon.
The match at Old Trafford was a personal triumph for Stokes as he became just the fourth England cricketer to score a hundred and take five wickets in the same Test.
Stokes, 34, is also now only the third man in Test history to have scored 7,000 runs and taken 200 wickets after West Indies' Garry Sobers and South Africa's Jacques Kallis.
Yet there were times on Saturday, when he didn't bowl at all, when Stokes was in evident pain, clutching his thigh -- a concerning sign given his history of hamstring problems.
There seemed no point in him being on the field at that stage except a lengthy absence would have delayed his return to bowling duty.
And Stokes duly struck early Sunday to remove obdurate opener KL Rahul for 90.
Stokes has now sent down 140 overs -- the most he has bowled in any series -- and is the leading wicket-taker on either side with 17 at an average of 25.2.
But those fine figures are also a reflection of the relative lack of penetration offered by the rest of England's attack.
"I'll always try to run through a brick wall for the team," said Stokes after Sunday's draw, adding: "I don't want to eat my words but the likelihood I won't play (at the Oval) is very unlikely."
Resolute Gill
Gill made a sensational start to his debut series as India captain with three hundreds in four innings.
But when his next three knocks yielded a total of just 34 runs, it seemed the bubble had burst.
He then came in on a hat-trick with India in dire straits at 0-2 in their second innings at Manchester, still more than 300 runs adrift of England's mammoth first-innings 669.
But Gill responded with a marathon 103 spanning seven hours before further hundreds from Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar ensured a draw.
Gill has now set a new record for the most runs scored by an India batsman in a series against England of 722, surpassing team-mate Yashasvi Jaiswal's 712 in 2023/24.
And at the Oval he could eclipse opening great Sunil Gavaskar's all-time India series record of 774 runs, set in a four-match campaign against the West Indies back in 1970/71.
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Hindustan Times
24 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
‘When Siraj took the last wicket, as much as I was disappointed…': England coach McCullum hails India in 'best series'
Brendon McCullum reserved massive praise for Mohammed Siraj for producing a lion-hearted effort at the Oval. His performance, especially the final wicket of Gus Atkinson, left the England head coach disappointed yet full of admiration for the Indian pacer's heart and grit. Chasing a 374-run target, England were bundled out for 367 courtesy Siraj's five-wicket haul, which included a sensational burst of 3-9 on Monday's final morning. England head coach Brendon McCullum reflects on five-match Test series against England.(Action Images via Reuters) After resuming on 339-6, England lost four wickets for 28 runs, as Gus Atkinson became the final victim of Siraj, which helped India level the series 2-2. McCullum was all praise for Siraj for his efforts at the Oval. He didn't back down from the challenge when India was backed against the wall. 'When [Mohammed] Siraj took that final wicket, as much as I was disappointed, I had admiration for him — for the fight he's got as a cricketer and the way he was able to do what he did," McCullum told Sky Sports. Meanwhile, the England coach described the series as the finest five-Test contest he's ever been involved in, highlighting the fierce competition between the two sides. He noted that the intensity never dropped, with gripping cricket and even a few heated on-field exchanges adding to the drama. 'That is the best five-match Test series I have ever been a part of or witnessed,' McCullum told Sky Sports. 'It just oscillated so much throughout the six weeks, and I felt it had everything. There was hostility at times, camaraderie at times, great cricket at times, and some average cricket as well, because of the pressure both teams were put under. We knew it was going to be hard coming into the series. We knew they were going to test us physically and mentally. I think it tested both teams more than we expected. It was a cracking series to be a part of," he added. McCullum also reflected on the gripping 2-2 series draw against India, calling it a just result after five fiercely contested Tests. Acknowledging the toll of playing five full matches, he praised the players' mental resilience and the effort required to endure such intensity. 'I think 2-2 was a fair reflection. Playing all five days of all five Tests becomes a mental exertion, and I thought the way they dealt with that was impressive. Obviously, we had to call in fresh legs for this last Test match. You know that fatigue is coming, but you don't know what it's like until it hits you. It is the hardest thing in cricket — playing a five-match series and being tested as much as you are, for as long as you are. It tests you not just as a sportsperson but as a character because it questions how much you want it. As a fan of the game, I thought it was an unbelievable spectacle," he concluded.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
Shubman Gill's pursuit of perfection: How Indian captain put in serious hours to prepare for English Test and came out trumps
It was about a month before he was to take the most important flight of his life to Heathrow, London, for his first assignment as India's Test captain at 25. On one gloomy day in Chandigarh before Shubman Gill came to England, England came to Shubman Gill. It was IPL time, he was leading the Gujarat Titans and having nets on what seemed like a 'dicey' pitch – some balls flying towards his face, others darting at his ribs. Shubman would stop training, dump the white balls back in the kit bag, and ask for a shiny red new one, the kind used for Test matches. Even while playing IPL, Shubman wasn't missing a chance to be England-ready. Gujarat Titans' assistant coach Naeem Amin is based out of London, and he was there to witness Shubman's quick ball-switch. 'And the bit that you will find interesting was him keen to practice just against a new ball. As soon as the new ball would become a little bit old, he'd change it for another new ball,' says Amin. As India's new Test No.4, Shubman knew that after facing the white-ball on flat tracks, he had to deal with the swinging-seaming red cherry in England. Amin also talks about the young skipper's hunger to learn and the desire to improve. 'His appetite always puts cricket first, and in that aspect, he is second to none. When Kane Williamson (former New Zealand captain and world's leading modern-day batsman) was in our team (GT), he was asking him about his thoughts all the time. 'How would you go about this or that? Why are you doing this drill? How does it benefit you?'.' England and New Zealand are miles apart, but on the cricketing map of conditions and pitches, they aren't that different. Williamson is in England playing county cricket these days, and turned up for the Lord's Test to find his one-time IPL teammate in the middle of the form of his life. He was pretty happy with what he saw. The pursuit of batting perfection has been Shubman's life goal since his wonder years in Punjab's border town of Fazilka. His father, a landed farmer, would pay kids in the neighbourhood Rs 100 to bowl at his son all day. When in his teens, Shubman knew that he could go back to tractors, fields and the family agriculture income, if cricket didn't work out. Like many others around him, the batting prodigy didn't lose sleep over the dilemma of academics or a career option. He would get up fresh with only cricket on his mind. Shubman would follow a punishing schedule, all through his Under-16 and Under-19 days, bat close to 6 to 8 hours every day. A typical day for him in Chandigarh, where he and his father moved from their village, would be about 3 to 4 hours of batting in the morning, a quick Amritsari lunch of patti or chhola kulcha, and again 3 to 4 hours of batting. Even when he made it to the Indian team, he was among the batsmen who batted the most at the nets. 'I want my body to take control of my mind … Not my mind taking control of me, seeding inside me self-doubts or getting carried away. Because I have practised so much for so many years, I want my body to take control of my mind. Let the muscle memory kick in. That's my challenge: use the mind to tell itself to stay quiet,' he once told The Indian Express. In England at the age 25, Shubman seemed to have achieved that batting nirvana. India's batting coach Sitanshu Kotak has been watching him closely for the past several months, and he could notice a change. 'From the Australia series to this series, I have seen his thought process and the way he batted. It is little different from what he has done in Australia … I would give a lot of credit to him for deciding what he wants to play, when he does not … Every batter, at some stage of their life, thinks and changes the way they bat in Test cricket. And Shubman seemed to be doing that brilliantly in this England series,' Kotak said. Before this series, Shubman's highest Test score was his 128 against Australia in 2023. As if he was given a Midas touch along with the captain's armband, everything that he touched in England has turned to gold. Between June 20 to July 6 – his fortnight of fortitude from the first to the third Test – Shubman registered three higher scores: 147, 269, 161. This was like the Swedish pole-vaulter Mondo Duplantis clearing new heights every other day, raising the bar at will. It was in Birmingham that Shubman would find his Bodhi Tree, where he found enlightenment. In England, his 267 is being hailed as the most perfect knock he's ever played. Data shows that epic innings had a false shot percentage of 3.5 – that's the least for any innings in England since this statistic came into existence 20 years back. Since geniuses like Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Pointing, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli are on the list below Shubman, the Birmingham innings is worthy to be framed in India's batting Hall of Fame. The near-perfect 267 was the outcome of his long penance, after mulling over many dismissals. It lifted him to a higher level, elevated him to the spiritual state where 'the body controls the mind' and the 'mind tells itself to stay quiet.' xxx England isn't an easy place to play cricket. In summer, the days are long; for cricketers, they are longer. They can suck the energy out of you, the weather can be murky, it can make you gloomy. This time, during the day, there was heat too. Consider the schedule of an Indian cricketer during the Lord's Test to understand this. The day would start at 6 am to be on the team bus that would start at 8 am. The match timing would be 11 am to 6.30 pm. By the time the team settles on the bus for the journey back to the team hotel, after press conferences and interviews, it would be 7.30 p.m. From Lord's to St James Court, where the team stayed, was easily a one and half hour long journey on the team bus, negotiating London's notorious traffic. After that the players would have a meal, some me-time and then hit the bed. Within hours, the alarm would go off once again. The schedule would be more or less the same for 25 days, plus there was the pressure of performance and fear of failure to deal with. For Gautam Gambhir, Shubman's biggest achievement as a first-time skipper was to remain unfazed all through this very demanding tour. 'This England team challenges a captain much more than Australia. They have many batsmen who can just run away with the game, and this puts pressure on the captain when the team is fielding. But not once has he looked shattered or lost,' he says. In Australia, there's just one Travis Head in the Test team who can mentally disintegrate an opposition captain and make the fielding side rudderless. In England, Bazballers are crawling out of the dressing room ever so frequently. It starts with openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett, the batting buccaneers who can brain freeze the best. Down the batting line-up, there is Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, and Ben Stokes – all three with swinging bats that can rattle any captain. The run machine Joe Root, with his solidity, seems to loom as a fulcrum. There have been occasions when Shubman has looked clueless, when he seemed to have lost the grip on the game but the team didn't give up. As was the case at The Oval when Brook and Root seemed to have the game in their pocket, India kept on coming back at them. And when they got a toe-hold in the door, they barged in as a commando unit on a covert operation. But as a member of the tour said, this series has been one of learning for the young skipper. 'See the way Ben Stokes leads his team, he has a few fielding templates, or call them plans, to get wickets. He keeps his fielders moving around. Suddenly, there would be a leg-side trap, next the off-side would have fielders in funky positions. Shubman needs to find his own templates and plan. He is young, he is hungry, he will learn,' a team official says. Gujarat Titans coach Amin gives an example of Shubman's thinking of a course correction as soon as he gets out. 'He is not the kind you will say I could have done this or that. After he has made a mistake as a batsman and got out, he has already dissected it on his walk back to the dugout. This is how quickly he realizes what he needs to do. There are times when there might be video analysis going on for another batter. He's keen to listen in, just in case he can upskill 0.5%,' he says. In the first Test in Leeds, he got out playing a reckless shot when on 147. It would have helped if he had stayed on longer. On the eve of the next Test, he would take the blame, promise to do better and an astonishing atonement waited for him. He would score a double hundred in the next innings. What was that compelling reason for the improved performance? 'Sometimes, especially when you are the captain, I think you need to lead by example so that whenever there is another player in that situation, you can command that player,' the team official said. This was a captain subtly asserting himself; this was a skipper earning the right to be the 'commander.' Former England captain Nasser Hussain, who had noted during the first Test that Gill 'lacked aura' would reassess his verdict at the end of the second Test: 'He (Gill) is not going to be a Kohli-type character. He's got a low heartbeat, but that can help. Look at this crowd here today. Look at all of India watching on. You may need someone just to calm the team.' As for Gambhir, he hasn't been over-interfering in the proceedings on the field. For long periods of stand-offs where wickets have been hard to come by, the captain has been changing fields, bowlers, and tactics without any obvious prompt from the dressing room. When Shubman is batting, the substitutes haven't randomly run on the field with gloves, or when the team is fielding, carrying unasked-for water bottles. Shubman does his thing, the way he likes. He does have counsel available on the field. Vice-captain Pant, seniors KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah, and even Mohammed Siraj, to chip in – when asked for and even offer unsolicited advice. As the pundits from the commentators box, especially while assessing the new captain during the first Test have said 'Shubman is running the team by committee.' xxx Amin speaks about this same leadership trait in the captain, who is always willing to listen. 'Shubman is the kind of guy where a 15-year-old was there and he had an opinion on something and Shubman thought it would be useful to him, he would listen to him,' he says. Behind those soft features and dimpled smile, there is a steely resolve to stay ahead. 'The guy puts in hours… he puts in some serious hours to get better. Like I'm telling you about the red ball, how he's practising against it, even when he's in India. He's just trying to stay one step ahead,' says Amin. It is the same pursuit of perfection that started from the border town. Life came full circle for Shubman at The Oval. In a 2-2 verdict, it was tough to say if the runs brought the best out of his captaincy or the captaincy triggered an avalanche of runs.
News18
an hour ago
- News18
13 Huge Records That Make Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Historic
1/13 Most runs in an India vs England Test series: Shubman Gill scored 754 runs in five Tests, breaking Graham Gooch's record of 752 (1990) for the most runs in a bilateral Test series between the two nations. Most runs for India as captain in a Test series: Gill surpassed Sunil Gavaskar's 732 to become India's highest run-scorer as captain in a Test series; only Don Bradman (810) has more as captain. First batter to score 700+ runs in a SENA series: Gill became the first Asian batter to score over 700 runs in a Test series in SENA countries, breaking Virat Kohli's record of 692 in Australia (2014-15). Highest individual score by an Indian Test captain: Gill's 269 at Edgbaston broke Virat Kohli's record of 254 to register the highest individual Test score by an Indian captain. First Asian captain to hit a double ton in SENA: Gill became the first Asian captain to score a double century in a Test in SENA countries, surpassing Dilshan's 193 at Lord's in 2011. Most runs in a Test match by an away batter: Gill scored 430 runs (269+161) in the second Test, breaking Mark Taylor's record of 426 for most runs by a visiting batter in a single Test. First England captain with a century and a 5-fer in same Test: Ben Stokes became the first English skipper—and fifth overall—to score a century and take a five-wicket haul in the same Test match. First Indian stumper with twin Test tons: Rishabh Pant became the first Indian wicketkeeper to score centuries in both innings of a Test match, doing so in the series opener at Headingley. Joe Root's historic run in the series: With 537 runs, Root became the second-highest run-getter in Test history (13,543), overtaking Dravid, Kallis, and Ponting—only behind Sachin Tendulkar. Root's other milestones: He became the first to score 6000 runs in the WTC and now has the most Test centuries (10) at home against a single team—India. Bumrah's SENA milestone: Jasprit Bumrah became the first Asian to take 150 Test wickets in SENA countries, achieving the feat in just 61 innings and 32 Tests. 7000-plus runs in the series: The Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy saw 7000+ runs—only the second such series after the 1993 Ashes; India's 3809 runs and 470 boundaries were both records. India's slimmest and biggest Test wins: India's 6-run win at The Oval was their narrowest-ever in Tests, while the 336-run triumph at Edgbaston was their biggest overseas win by runs.
