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LONDON: Ben Stokes appeared visibly jaded at the media briefing on Wednesday. It was an hour after a bicep injury had ruled him out of the fifth and final Test starting here at the Oval on Thursday. Though he was bound to be disappointed, he ploughed through the 15-minute long interaction.The fatigue showed on India captain Shubman Gill’s face as well. Yet, he chose not to talk about it. He instead opted for words like “exciting” and “opportunity”, besides emphasising on how big a loss it is for England to have Stokes missing the Test.While England announced they would be without their frontline pace attack in Stokes, Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse, Gill chose to keep his cards close to his chest till the morning of the Test. Hence, there was no official confirmation on Jasprit Bumrah’s availability. However, it will be a big effort from the team management and Bumrah if he does take the field to play his fourth Test on the tour on Thursday.It has been a very long and gruelling series. The locals here compare it to the Ashes series of 2005. Even that series didn’t have each of its first four Tests going to the last session. This series has been an anomaly, especially at a time when the caretakers of the game are even discussing fourday Tests to keep the format alive.Both teams were battered, tired and edgy as they arrived here with a 2-1 scoreline favouring England. The emotions have spilled onto the pitch in the last two Tests. There was frequent needling at Lord’s and Old Trafford. Each team has tended to invoke the spirit of cricket after each incident, be it India captain Shubman Gill tearing into ZakCrawley and Ben Duckett at Lord’s or Stokes deriding Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar for dragging the game to complete their centuries.
Stokes bowling flat out in spite of carrying niggles in the last two Tests and Rishabh Pant batting with a broken foot showcased how both teams have pushed their limits. This week will be about emptying their tanks.There was this undeniable edginess and tension at the Oval on match eve. India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir’s altercation with the curator on Tuesday has added another talking point. Stokes stayed away from the controversy with a curt ‘I-wasn’t-here’ response. Gill, who too wasn’t around on Tuesday, ridiculed the curator, suggesting his coaching staff to stay 2.5 metres away from the pitch.These incidents have injected life into a series that started with experts calling both teams too friendly. It is also true that both teams have not tried to blow it up. “I think once you are done with the match, you are done with the match. And you move on to the next one. And you want to play the next one as competitive and as best as you can,” Gill said on Wednesday.
“Nothing of that sort,” was Gill’s prompt response to a query if he felt the hospitality wasn’t up to the mark in the series. “I think these are three very separate movements, not correlated at all,” he added.Contemporary Test cricket doesn’t see many matches going to the last day. This India team, in particular, is mostly accustomed to playing short Tests that struggle to go deep. Stokes didn’t mind conceding it has sucked a lot out of the players, both physically and mentally.“It is tiring, but then obviously the mental side of it as well is just as tiring. It’s been a tough, gruelling series, but it’s class play. It’s a real test of character and physicality,” Stokes said while adding that the two teams have become examples for other countries.“The way both teams have fronted up every single session and given everything for their countries is testament to how much this format means to England and India and every other team in the world. The easy option would be to just give up. I don’t see it being any different this week.”
Gill himself had conceded in Manchester that it has been mentally more exhausting than physically. On Wednesday, he chose to talk about the significance of the Test match. “I sit in front of you excited for the last Test,” he said with a smile. “It is very significant. The scoreline of the series doesn’t determine the kind of cricket we have played. Coming outside of India with a relatively young team, I think it is going to be a big achievement for us. If we are able to level the series. And the series has been a great learning curve for me,” he said.
Livelier pitch?
Stokes reiterated that he has hoped for pitches more conducive to the bowlers than what they have got in the series. It could be a reason behind both teams seeing pacers breaking down. Going by Stokes’ reading, the greenish-looking Oval pitch is likely to be livelier. England will need it with their frontline bowlers missing out.
The schedule
Stokes highlighted the need to have standard breaks in between matches in a five-Test series. “If you had two eight-day and nine-day gaps, and then two three-day turnarounds, maybe you could look at making it four or five days for every game just so there’s that consistency,” he said.Gill, too, believes a three-day turnaround is too short for the players but also understood the challenges of scheduling such a series. “Three days is too little of a turnaround when both the teams are playing such hard cricket. We understand that if you keep giving five or six days break, the tour becomes very long. The decision has been taken by the boards and we trust the decision,” Gill said.
Source: Times of India
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