England captain Ben Stokes believed that the lack of a hundred beside their names would not have decreased the efforts of Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja in saving the Manchester Test. Jadeja got life off the very first ball he faced, and Washington batted through 55.2 overs for a 203-run stand that helped India draw the match as well.
“The knock that those two played was very, very good,” Ben Stokes said at the press conference.
“The situation that India found themselves in there, with us opening the game slightly, that partnership was massive. You hold your hands up, they played incredibly, incredibly well. And I don’t think there would’ve been too much more satisfaction from walking off a hundred not out, getting your team out of a tricky situation, than walking off at 80, 90 not out. That’s what you’ve done for your team. You know, the 10 more runs or whatever it was ain’t gonna change the fact that you’ve managed to get your team out of a very, very, very tricky situation and almost saved your team from a series defeat before the last game,” Ben Stokes again shared.
However, Ben Stokes clarified that the use of Harry Brook and Joe Root with the ball was a plan. After 257 overs in the field and with the Oval Test taking place soon, preserving the main bowlers was a priority too as well.
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“We were willing to take it as far as we possibly could and throw everything at them that we did, but it got to that point where there was obviously only one result left on the table and I wasn’t going to be risking any of my frontline bowlers in a situation like that, especially when we’ve got a quick turnaround,” he said.
“The only other person who actually has any bowling workload in them is Harry Brook. But I did have to say to him, please don’t do anything stupid. We’ve been out in the field for 200-and-whatever overs, we’ve got a quick turnaround, so just do what needs to be done. I said don’t do anything daft: don’t pull a side, don’t pull a hamstring. We knew what was going on there,” Ben Stokes further added.
In the visitors’ camp, the scene was more empathetic and celebratory. Both Gautam Gambhir and Shubman Gill felt the two batters had successfully earned their centuries as well.
He added, “If someone is batting on 90 and the other one is batting on 85, wouldn’t they deserve a hundred? Would they have walked off if someone from England side would’ve been batting on 90 or 85?
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“If someone has the opportunity to get his first Test hundred, wouldn’t you allow him to do it? They weather the storm. It’s up to them. If they want to play that way, that’s up to them. I’ve got nothing more to say. I think both those guys deserve a hundred and fortunately they got it in the end,” he stated.
“Day five wicket, something keeps happening, every ball is an event. We wanted to play ball by ball, take the game as deep as possible. That’s what we spoke about. Every match going up until the last session of the last day … so many learnings. Each Test match teaches you something different, four matches as a group has also taught a lot. Hopefully, we can draw the series if we win the next match,” he concluded.
