As English off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, bowling with a bandaged left hand, got the wicket of Mohammed Siraj, batting with a freshly bruised shoulder, a bloody, sweaty and thrilling five-day-long gladiatorial fight came to an end. England won the Test by 22 runs to take a 2-1 lead in the hotly-contested series, but only after cricket’s grandest colosseum had witnessed many acts of valour from both sides.
This was the kind of Test that inspires books and endless hours of cricket speculation among fans. What if K L Rahul had survived the lbw? What if Jasprit Bumrah did not try the ambitious pull? What if Mohammed Siraj had lasted at the crease a bit longer? The ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ would be discussed for the next couple of days, but history will remember England’s win and the grueling bat vs ball contest between cricket’s two great fighters, Ravindra Jadeja and England skipper Ben Stokes.
Indian captain Shubman Gill, involved in an ugly altercation with English players all through the Tests, suggested that tempers flaring was an indicator of a real close contest. “There would be times when there would be a little bit of heat from both sides. You’re in the moment. You’re trying everything to be able to do whatever it takes to make your team win. I think it happens in a game of cricket,” he said.
Test Cricket.
Wow.
😍 pic.twitter.com/XGDWM1xR2H— England Cricket (@englandcricket) July 14, 2025
And that was the reason Lord’s would almost see a football-style pushing-shoving episode on the cricket field when Jadeja would bump into English bowler Brydon Carse. Jadeja wasn’t conceding an inch on the turf or in the game. He wasn’t giving up despite the collapse of the top-order and how the subsequent depressing scorecard read.
Needing 193, India, from their overnight score of 58/4 would sink to 71/5, 81/6, 82/7, 112/8. But giving up isn’t what Indian cricket’s greatest survivor does. Little wonder, he has outlived his contemporaries and the game’s greats, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. They have retired, he is still selling dreams and keeping fans invested in Test cricket.
Jadeja gets to do the team’s dirty work, he mostly gets to bat with tailenders. He is a seasoned chaperon of No. 9, No. 10 and No. 11. So, batting with Jasprit Bumrah and Siraj was not new. He stuck to the time-tested plan — taking most of the strike and constantly asking the batting bowlers to curb their instincts to hit the ball along the ground. He and Bumrah would play out 22 overs and take the score to 147/9. With Siraj going step by step, they would take the score to 170/9. And just when a miracle was round the corner, the Bashir ball sneaked into Siraj’s so-far sturdy defence. Jadeja, at the other end, fell in a heap, head in his gloved hands, his flannels getting dirtier.
Among those celebrating was another perennial trier — Superman Stokes. In the morning session, he bowled for close to an hour-and-a-half. That was when he had taken the all-important wicket of the day — K L Rahul, trapped lbw on a ball that swung in from a slightly short length. Through the day, he would bowl 19 energy-sapping overs, an achievement, and a risk, for someone returning after two hamstring surgeries.
Fights through to fifty, but the sword stays in its sheath.#RavindraJadeja knows the job’s not over🤞🏻#ENGvIND 👉 3rd TEST, DAY 5 | LIVE NOW on JioHotstar 👉 https://t.co/DTsJzJLwUc pic.twitter.com/Hig4Y61i8N
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) July 14, 2025
He also had the additional task of commanding his troops. With India inching towards a win, he took the punt and got in the spinner, Shoaib. Before walking out of the field as a winner, he would give a big warm hug to Jadeja. Stokes knew how hard his rival had tried in this edge-of-seat Test.
It was the anticipation of such exhilarating cricket that saw an unmissable buzz around Lord’s. So strong was the flow of the fans out of the St John’s Wood tube station that the authorities switched off the turnstile. The Test had been on a boil for the last four days and there was a whiff in the Lord’s air that suggested that a mouth-watering broth was cooking.
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Nothing separated the two teams. In the first innings, both teams had scored an identical 387 and, in the second, they were running shoulder-to-shoulder. At the start of the day, chasing 193, India needed 135 runs to win. England just had to take 6 wickets. This was a 50-50 game. Even after two exciting sessions of ups and down, the result was still inconclusive. At tea, India needed 30 runs, England just 1 wicket. It was still 50-50.
It has been a while since India and England have played a Test that has mattered so much to so many. And this went beyond the Lord’s arena. Around lunch time, on BBC’s Test Match Special, a listener would send an email to say that he had just been wheeled out of the operation theatre after a hernia surgery and there couldn’t have been a better start of his recovery than the sight of the scoreboard from Lord’s. At that point, India was 81/6 with the men expected to take India home – K L Rahul and Rishabh Pant — back in the pavilion.
There was no further update about the patient following the rest of the Test. He might have got the result he wished for, but blood pressure spikes aren’t healthy for those in hospital. This is the third straight Test of the series that has seen a thrilling finish on Day 5. Who was it that said that Tests should be four-day affairs?
