ENG vs IND 2025: The fourth Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar series, played in Manchester, took a strange turn when England captain Ben Stokes proposed to draw the match in the final hour of the fifth day. At that time, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar were at the crease - Jadeja at 89 and Sundar at 80. Both of them had stitched together a partnership of more than 200 runs by batting for two sessions. England felt that now there would be no result, so captain Stokes talked about ending the game. However, the Indian pair rejected this proposal.
The intention of both batsmen were very clear - if you have sweated on the field, got the desired result, then it is right to score a century. They clearly showed that they will not stop at half-finished work. Stokes tried to convince them, even taunted them, that he would bring in a part-time bowler like Harry Brook to bowl so that they could complete their centuries. However, the Indian batsmen continued to play in their own way.
When Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir was asked about this decision after the match, he gave a blunt reply to England and said that if any of Stokes' team's batsmen had got the same opportunity, would he have stopped him from scoring a century? According to him, both Jadeja and Sundar had worked hard, and they should have got the reward for it.
“If someone is batting on 90, and the other is batting on 85, don't they deserve a hundred? Would they have walked off? If someone from England would've been batting on 90 or 85, and had the opportunity to score their first Test hundred, wouldn't you allow them to do it?” Gambhir asked in the post-match press conference.
“See, it's up to them. If they want to play that way, it's up to them. I think both of those guys deserved a hundred, and they got it,” he added.
India had a bad start. The first two wickets fell without scoring any runs. KL Rahul and captain Shubman Gill batted carefully on the fourth day, which brought India back into the match. On the morning of the final day, Jadeja and Sundar took charge and made no mistakes. Both of them not only kept the scoreboard ticking but also did not give England a single chance.
Ultimately, the match was drawn, but the seeds of controversy had been sown. Stokes's face at the end of the match clearly showed that he did not like all this, but there was self-satisfaction in the Indian camp - Jadeja and Sundar both scored centuries, and got full reward for their hard work on the field.
Stokes' sentiment is in its place, but cricket is a game of emotion as well as passion. Jadeja and Sundar showed that players do not come just to save the score; sometimes it is also necessary to play for oneself. Gambhir's statement was not just support, it was also a clear message - India will now play on their own terms under all circumstances.
