Smokin’ Stokes gets England home
Captains hail classic nail-biter as proof test cricket remains the ultimate contest
England’s 1000th men’s test wasn’t quite one in a million, but then again it wasn’t far off. This game had everything: delicious ebb and flow, a performance for the ages from Virat Kohli, all-round chutzpah from the 20-year-old Sam Curran and — on the final morning — a tour de force from Ben Stokes.
Crucially for Joe Root and his team, it also had an England win, by 31 runs.
As Joe Root and Kohli, waiting on the outfield for their TV interviews, chatted quietly together, their body language emitted mutual warmth and respect. Both men knew they had been in a battle that spoke for itself.
“It was a fabulous advert for test cricket,” said Root. ”Anyone who says it’s dead should come and watch this on repeat.”
Kohli, beaten but not bowed after contributing 200 of his side’s 435 runs, agreed: “It is the best format for me. People who watch it should love it if they understand the game.”
Amen to all that. Yet for all mistyeyed glow, Root will know that, above all, it was the result that counted. After eight games without a victory, England have won two in a row. In the red-hot cauldron of Edgbaston, they might just have spied the green shoots of recovery.
The fourth morning dawned bright, with the narrative apparently pre-determined. As India chased 84 runs, and England five wickets, the contest had been distilled in advance to two men: Kohli against Jimmy Anderson.
It didn’t quite happen. Anderson did take a wicket in the day’s first over, Dinesh Karthik edging low to second slip, where a relieved Dawid Malan clung on to a replica of the chance he missed on the second day when Kohli was 21 runs into his eventual 149. But the telling blows were struck by Stokes, whose demeanour did not suggest a man two days away from answering charges of affray in Bristol court.
Perhaps the cut and thrust of a tense test was just what he needed.
And so, with Kohli moving ominously to 51, and India needing 52 to pull off their first win at Edgbaston, it was Stokes who grabbed the game by its horns.
His third ball was full and straight, and for once Kohli erred.
He moved across his stumps and missed a work to leg. Stokes’s appeal was long and throaty; Aleem Dar answered in the affirmative. Kohli asked for a review, as he had to. The technology, though, could not save him. It was the moment England had been waiting for.
Emboldened, Stokes struck again three balls later, Mohammed Shami poking through to Jonny Bairstow, who grabbed his fifth catch of the innings.
Root was enjoying a serene morning as captain, setting attacking fields while also guarding the boundary, and refusing to chase the game as the prize came into view. Now, after the drinks break, he tossed the ball to Adil Rashid, confident in his leg-spinner’s ability to flummox the tail.
The ploy worked a treat. Rashid’s sixth ball was a googly which, as in the first innings, Ishant Sharma failed to pick. For cleaning up the tail, something with which England have struggled of late, a spinner who can turn it both ways is invaluable.
Eight runs later, it was all over, as Pandya, the only Indian in this test other than Kohli to pass 26, fiddled Stokes to first slip.
Less than 10 sessions of nip and tuck had produced 903 runs and 40 wickets, confirming the suspicion that the best tests are low-scoring, in which only the best batsmen thrive.