Midnight talks and £1 pints – The inside tale of longest series

Much has changed since the dramatic events in September which led to the last-minute postponement at Old Trafford

The longest Test series in history will end over the next five days almost a year after it started. England play India in the rearranged fifth Test at a different ground, with different captains and coaches and even a different start time.

The story of how English cricket reached this point involves a London book launch, shopping trips to Selfridges, private jets to Abu Dhabi, a breastfeeding mother, panicked through-the-night video calls from London to Mumbai and even rumours of a plastic “turd”. At stake is filling a £40 million black hole for English cricket and India’s first series win here for 15 years.

It was in the early hours of Sept 10 that England and Wales Cricket Board officials learnt that India were pulling out of the fifth Test at Old Trafford. Head coach Ravi Shastri, bowling coach Bharat Arun and physio Nitin Patel had tested positive during the fourth Test at the Oval a week earlier, where India took a 2-1 lead in the series.

Shastri’s case was particularly controversial. The launch of his book, Stargazing: The Players in My Life, at a Taj London hotel was identified as a “super-spreader” event. About 150 were estimated to have attended. Shastri tested positive on Sept 5, five days after the event. Tom Harrison, the England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive, had also been there.

No masks were worn and the ECB briefed that they were unhappy because they knew nothing about the event and it had not been cleared as Covid-safe. England were said to be “furious”, with players having seen some of their Indian colleagues shopping at Selfridges in Manchester days before the Test was cancelled and when the teams were supposed to be in their hotels.

Shastri later said he had “absolutely no regrets” (he thought he picked up Covid at the Oval, where India shared lifts with the public) but his infection was crucial. He was isolating in London as his spooked players and their families were in Manchester discussing getting out of the tour.

It is felt by some that Shastri would have been the “grown-up” in the room who would have told the players to get on with it. Instead, fears grew when assistant physio Yogesh Parmar, who had treated many members of the squad, also fell ill. India did not turn up for practice on the eve of the match, the first sign of a major problem.

They wanted to leave England fast. Indian Premier League bosses were offering a quick getaway on

private jets, fuelled and ready to take them to the United Arab Emirates where the Twenty20 tournament was due to start a few days later. With many having wives, girlfriends and children in tow, there was pressure to leave. One wife was not vaccinated because she was breastfeeding. Mothers feared children catching Covid in England and being forced to stay in isolation when the players went home.

Captain Virat Kohli sent an email to the Indian board at midnight – signed by all the players – demanding the match be canned. Supporters, unaware of what was happening, turned up at Old Trafford. Coffee stalls had been laid out with flapjacks, croissants and muffins. Food was being prepared for corporate lunches, extra beer had been ordered and hundreds of temporary staff turned up for work.

Just minutes before the gates were due to open to a sell-out 22,000 crowd, the game was off.

Beer prices were slashed to £1 a pint to stop it being poured down the drains and food was donated to a Manchester homeless charity.

The ECB put out a statement saying India had forfeited the Test, which would mean a 2-2 draw, only for that to be hastily revised when furious Indian officials read it. They later released their own version of events, saying the boards would look to reschedule the match.

Harrison was like a government minister forced onto the airwaves to defend a prime minister’s gaffe. He had to be diplomatic and insist the cancellation was nothing to do with the IPL, because to say otherwise would have jeopardised India’s return.

Nobody believed him and some enraged supporters sent letters of complaint to the ECB for perceived weakness in not standing up to India. One parcel is said to have included a plastic “turd”.

Harrison had already steered the game through the Covid crisis that cost English cricket £100 million. Now he was looking at a potential £40million loss from broadcast fees for the Test and refunds of 90,000 tickets, plus sponsorship and advertising revenue. There was talk of insurance claims but companies had stopped paying out for Covid. The rescheduling of the match – at Edgbaston, rather than Old Trafford, which had already scheduled concerts in July 2022 – averted many of those losses.

Much has changed since last year. Harrison has left his job; so, too, Ian Watmore, then chairman of the ECB. Chris Silverwood and Joe Root are no longer in charge of the England side. Kohli stepped down as Test captain in January, after Shastri retired as India coach in November.

The carnage has been remarkable but now, almost 12 months on, Ben Stokes has the chance to prove the delay was actually a blessing for England.