England Test captain Ben Stokes was frustrated by Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar's unbeaten stand for the fifth wicket as they denied the hosts a win at The Old Trafford, Manchester. In the last session on Day 5, before the start of mandatory overs, Stokes offered a handshake to call it a draw but Jadeja refused as him and Sundar were approaching a hundred. A tired Stokes was left fuming alongside Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett. He handed the ball to Harry Brook, Joe Root and let Jadeja, Sundar get to centuries. He did not see any point to bowl a few more overs so that the duo can get to their respective hundreds. After the draw, Stokes feels that the Indian all-rounders did well to salvage a draw but the hundreds would not have given them more satisfaction.
"The knock that those two played was very, very good," 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."
Stokes' message to Brook
Stokes took the decision to bowl Brook as he did not want his frontline bowlers risk getting injured as the Test was headed for a certain draw. He also told Brook to not do anything stupid as he wants him fit for the fifth and final Test of the series starting July 31.
"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."
Sundar scored 101 runs from 206 balls whereas Jadeja scored 107 off 185 deliveries. India posted 425/4 from 143 overs and had a 114-run lead when the Test ended in a draw.