Posted by No other sport does all-the-fun-of-the-fair climaxes like cricket. In large part that’s due to the complexity of the game and the way specific goals shift from ball to ball (or even within the span of a single delivery). It’s also the fact that these most crucial moments invariably involve the batters least qualified to bat pitted against the best of the opposition’s bowlers. What a mad and wonderful dynamic.
The final ‘day’ of the 2025 England v India series was a classic of the genre. It began with England needing 35 runs to win the series and India needing four wickets to level it.
> Why ‘overnight’ is such an important part of a five-day Test match
1. A big first over
The old ‘big first hour’ cliché most definitely applied with play unlikely to stretch beyond it. It was therefore a big first over too – even though there were only four balls left of it.
Jamie Overton smeared the first ball for four. The second ball totally got the better of him, but cricket being cricket, he profited from it the exact same amount.
Eight runs in two balls and the 35-run target looked an awful lot smaller. Because it was.
2. A big second over
After that, it was a big second over. Mohammed Siraj bowled it because, four balls in, the day had already had enough Siraj-free drama.
Jamie Smith gave not one, but two previews of exactly how he was going to get out before finally executing his terminal shot at the third attempt.
After apparently momentarily sending his consciousness into some other being elsewhere in the universe, umpire Kumar Dharmasena asked the third umpire what had happened. Rod Tucker told him that it was a terribly obvious wicket and to just give it out. (Honestly what happened with this one? Did Dharmasena just completely forget the rules of cricket for a few seconds? Imagine if there’d been no third umpire and he’d just had to guess what to do and had signalled a leg bye or a six or one short.)
Gus Atkinson then edged the very next ball, only for it to fall – what – about an inch short of KL Rahul?
3. The not out celebration
The downside of DRS is that every time the umpire raises the finger for an LBW appeal, the celebrations are qualified. Rather than the immediate catharsis of an unequivocal dismissal, all you’ve really got is a basis for negotiation.
The upside of DRS is that we now get to cheer batters being not out, which didn’t used to be a thing. Previously not out was the default and then the batter’s status changed to out and that was that. But now we have reprieves: big joyous roars for, “Oh actually, turns out Josh Tongue’s not out after all.”
4. Atkinson reversing a single
Not reverse sweeping – running a single backwards. Gus thought he’d hit the ball backwards when actually he’d hit it forwards, which resulted in him taking a single while looking in the exact opposite direction to the relevant fielder.
This move almost resulted in overthrows – the one obvious thing the finish to this Test match lacked.
5. Chris Woakes, one-armed bandit
It seemed a neat representation of Chris Woakes’ entire summer that even when he only had one functioning arm, he was still obliged to play cricket for England.
This was one of the most stirringly admirable things we’ve seen on a cricket field and also one of the most comically ludicrous.
6. Atkinson dropped for six
‘Six or out’ is a priceless moment at any time, but octuply so at the arse end of a Test match when so much more work has been put in by everyone involved.
Siraj swung the ball. Atkinson swung his bat. Akash Deep could have been Akash Deeper. The fielder leapt like a crested salmon but succeeded only in accelerating a probable four for six.
Bizarrely, it wasn’t even the first fielder-assisted six of the innings. The day before, Mohammed Siraj had inadvertently turbo boosted Harry Brook’s innings when he’d only made 19 when he caught the Yorkshireman on the boundary only to clip the boundary toblerone with his very next step.
(What followed was an entirely on-brand wacky Brook hundred that eventually climaxed with a legitimate catch by Siraj at cover, taken while Brook’s bat was still bouncing around somewhere near midwicket.)
7. Running to the keeper
A timelessly great cricket phenomenon. You never run when you miss the ball and it goes straight through to the keeper because there’s such a good chance that you or your batting partner will be dismissed. Except sometimes – and what’s amazing about this is that it pretty much only happens when a match is at its most tense – batters will conclude that it’s exactly the right decision to do this.
On this occasion, all it took was the presence of a one-armed batter at the non-striker’s end for the final ball of an over.
This particular ‘running a single when the ball’s gone straight to the keeper’ was especially good because firstly, the whole outcome of 25 days of Test cricket was up for grabs if Dhruv Jurel could have thrown a bit straighter, and secondly, one of the batters was running with one of his arms inside his jumper.
We’ll say it again, but honestly, what a sport.
8. Mohammed Siraj, last man standing
Bloody hell it’s been a long summer for Mohammed Siraj. And there he was at the end. Still. Somehow.
When Woakes was injured, Siraj was left as the only quick bowler to make it through five Tests that have been almost relentlessly unkind to such players. Wickets have been flat. Every Test has gone to the final day.
On one of those final days, Siraj was batting, the last man in, when India were just a handful of runs from victory. He batted an hour for four runs then middled a Shoaib Bashir delivery into the ground, only to see the ball trickle past his legs and into his leg stump in the most pathetically feeble manner imaginable.
Such things would break a more rational man, but Siraj ploughed on. That dismissal wasn’t a one-off downer either. Throughout this series, the game gave him endless signals that things just weren’t going to go his way. The overall message was an easy one to interpret: You are not the leading man. You are the fall guy. You are cannon fodder.
Somehow or other, Siraj was unperturbed.
Even when he caught Harry Brook for that six and spent the rest of the day watching the ball go to all parts, Siraj didn’t lose faith. To be clear, he absolutely should have lost faith. Faith was right there for the losing. But he didn’t. The product of this delusional conviction was a few late wickets with an old ball that finally started swinging.
On day five, Siraj swung that ball past an England batter’s outside edge pretty much every time he released it. Compared to the rest of the series, these frustrations constituted the boom times.
It wasn’t so much that Siraj was still there, in a position to take that final wicket on the final day of a 25-day series. It was more that he’d still been there at all those other times – like the night before when perhaps only he had really believed that victory was still possible. That endurance – partly physical, but more significantly mental – was his true triumph really and it was why he deserved the more obvious moment that drew this magnificent series to a close.
9. 2-2
The series ends with the teams level, just as it would have done had they scheduled only one Test and suffered a complete washout.
It’s not where you end up; it’s how you get there.
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I know it would have been a terrible thing on so many levels for a man with only one free arm and in obvious physical pain to have to face an actual 88mph yorker from Sira (and the inevitable outcome of such an eventuality might have led to a solid month of ‘spirit of cricket’ “debates”, as well as genuine damage to Woakes) but there was a small part of me desperate to see Woakes end up on strike through some mishap or even a deliberate fielding ploy.
One of cricket’s great unanswered questions, that.
Glad he got the opportunity to be applauded to the crease, at least. A better memory than the sad clapping from when he was forced off earlier in the match if that ends up his final appearance.
Great cricket produces great writing. Top stuff this week from the likes of Ronay, Ehantharajah, Liebke and Bowden.
Ha! Thanks.