(Image source from: Twitter.com/englandcricket)
Six years ago, Ben Stokes said he was sorry by putting his hands up. Now, he was tightening his hands into fists because he was excited. On the day that celebrates how he helped England become world champions, he once again helped them win. It was like he couldn't rest until he had done this. On Saturday, he bowled seven rounds with the second new ball, and coach Brendon McCullum sent someone from his team to the side to remind him he was still just a person. On Monday, no one wanted to bother him. Stokes kept going for 9.2 rounds, then bowled another 10 rounds, and was so strong that a player from the other team had to ask if he could go to the bathroom.
Ravindra Jadeja was the player who had to run off. It seems that nature doesn't care if you are the only thing stopping your team from losing. It happens when it has to. Just like all the English players wanted his wicket or for him to make a mistake. But they got nothing. India&039;s great player was as amazing as the other player, scoring his fourth half-century in a row and helping the players at the end do something great. But it wasn’t going to happen. In the fifth round after they had tea, a player with a broken finger managed to spin the ball off the bat of the last player and hit the sticks. Lord's. On July 14. It’s not a place for those who are not strong. Mohammed Siraj should not have been standing. He was very sad. Shoaib Bashir flew up into the air, very happy. He had just helped win the closest Test-match that this old place has ever seen.
India started the day in London needing 135 runs. Instead, they got 21.5 rounds of trouble in the morning. They had shown a bit of this four years earlier. England wanted to get back at them. They didn't need to look far back to get energy. There has been a lot of stress over the last three days, starting when Shubman Gill got angry about them wasting time and ending with Siraj saying goodbye to Ben Duckett. Even Jofra Archer, who is usually relaxed, had to get in Rishabh Pant's face after hitting his off stump down. It was the third round of the day. He had just been hit back down the field with one hand, which made him mad enough to run faster when he bowled. That extra effort helped the ball grab the ground a bit more, going past the edge and hitting the off stump down, which had to fall over.
Archer often celebrates important wickets by running off quickly. The wicket he took during his first over in this game, his first Test in four years, almost made him jump into the crowd, if Bashir hadn’t stopped him. He was going to do that but quickly changed direction and went to the batter leaving the field to say something. Stokes had wanted this. He wanted excitement. He wanted confidence. He wanted energy. He wanted India to feel trapped and overwhelmed. "Bang, bang," he had said right before Pant was out and made it happen when he got KL Rahul out 18 balls later. He was on the ground asking for lbw, trying hard to get umpire Sharfuddoula to raise his finger. The umpire did not. Right away, he thought hard about why he should challenge the call. In the end, he only needed to figure out one thing. Was height an issue? No, Joe Root from slips confirmed. He saw that Rahul was far back from his line.
The review showed Stokes was right. The ball was good. The way it moved going down the slope was hard to read. It hit the pads first. HawkEye showed three reds. Stokes squeezed his fists in happiness. Many of the 24,281 people watching cheered with him. Ten of them were very close to him. His teammates, who have seen him do the impossible and think they can too just because he supports them. This clearly showed what this Test match was all about. Stokes was the main focus, with the rest of the England team around him.
India lost three wickets while scoring only 11 runs in four overs. Jadeja and Nitish Kumar Reddy were under pressure and managed to hold on for a bit. The ball became softer. It was hard to score runs. Trying to get the crowd excited didn't work as shouts of "Indiaaaaaa! Indiaaa!" filled the air. The pair batting eighth made 30 runs from 89 balls, fighting not just great bowling but also their own desire to attack.
"Not in the IPL," Harry Brook joked with Reddy. "Jaddu has to get them all." Stokes tried to get Reddy involved too, doing more work during that long period by extending his follow-through, but the Indian all-rounder just shook his head calmly. "Not saying a word." It seemed like this partnership had survived its toughest part, and the safety of lunch was almost there. That was when Chris Woakes came in and changed the game. Even though his speed had gone down, and England had looked to others at the start of the day, they were now grateful to their star for getting a key edge to the keeper. Reddy, who was steady when the ball was close, made a mistake when he played at a wider ball, leading to him getting out. England left the field to loud applause.
Jadeja didn't play it safe even though the bowlers were his only partners, and he almost paid the price. In the 48th set of six balls, he was called out because the ball looked like it would have hit the leg, with India still needing 68 runs. Although the umpire on the field thought it was out, the review system disagreed. Jadeja realized he had nearly made a big mistake and powerfully hit the next ball over the boundary behind the middle of the field. It appeared that this was simply his way of dealing with his stress. For 11 sets of six balls, they didn't hit any more boundaries as Jasprit Bumrah showed a lot of resolve, and Jadeja kept playing the way he had planned. They tried to score runs little by little, particularly on the fourth ball of each set. The pair of Indian players at the ninth-wicket spot held off England for 131 balls—Bumrah played 53 of those without any problems, but the 54th ball made things difficult.
Stokes, in the sixth set of another strong effort, tried to bowl a shorter ball. He had not done this before because the field was slower and it didn’t seem like a good idea. Now, he wanted to win so badly that he took a chance and went with what he felt was right. Bumrah made this possible when he tried to hit a few balls with a hooking shot but missed. At that moment, Jadeja, at the opposite end, showed that he was not happy; anyone else might have cried. You put in all that effort, and then you mess it up like that? But, Bumrah didn’t get the message. He kept trying to hook the ball, and a slight touch off the top edge calmed England's worries while making things tense for India.
Stokes finished the set and finally relaxed a little, showing that he was getting tired. He completely forgot to take his hat from the umpire. But, he kept bowling. He stayed focused on the game, telling Archer to go for the ball at the long-on area, cheering for Jamie Smith when he stopped a slower ball from getting past him, and running to Ollie Pope when he thought he had caught the ball at short leg, bending low near where the bat touched the pad. When what he had worked so hard for finally happened, he just watched as the rest of his team celebrated. He was too tired to join in. So, they all came to him instead.
