Packed stadiums, gripping cricket, and the uncertainties of the game on full display

(A photo feature appears at the end of the write-up)

It was an incredibly hard-fought Test series, one for all times, aptly finishing level at 2-2 after a magical win for India in the last of the five matches, made possible by the indomitable Mohammed Siraj. The series, which witnessed overwhelming crowd presence, saw over 7,000 runs being scored, including a record-equalling 21 individual centuries.

Not many believed in the new look younger Indian side under a young, less experienced captain, but with their fighting spirit and self-belief they proved themselves worthy of the legacy left behind by the sudden retirement of all-time greats Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin.

With exceptional batting performances, led by India’s Player of the Series Shubman Gill (Harry Brook was declared the Player of the Series on the England side), and gritty bowling spearheaded at different times during the series by a not-fully-fit yet still world’s best bowler Jasprit Bumrah, and in his absence by Mohammed Siraj, the team displayed exceptional skill and spunk to admirably fill the void left by the absence of the legends.

England head coach Brendon McCullum’s words aptly reflected the intensity with which the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Series 2025 was played, ending in a deserving 2-2 draw.

“That is the best five-match Test series I have ever been a part of and witnessed. It just oscillated so much right throughout the six weeks and I felt it had everything. I thought there was hostility at times, camaraderie at times, great cricket at times, there was some average cricket because of the pressure they were put under.

“We knew it was going to be hard coming into the series, we knew they were going to test us physically and mentally. I think it tested both teams more than we expected. I think 2-2 was a fair reflection,” is what the man who propounded the much debated ‘bazball’ brand of cricket had to say.

Ben Stokes, the England captain and star performer in the series, who missed the final Test due to a shoulder injury, was also all praise for the quality of cricket both sides displayed in the series, describing it as one of the most compelling Test series he has been part of, despite his disappointment at missing out on a series victory.

Speaking after India’s dramatic six-run victory in the fifth Test at The Oval, Stokes acknowledged the fairness of the drawn series result although he expressed his frustration at England’s inability to get over the line in a tight finish.

“I think the series as a whole, even before this game, it was just all four games going to five days, this one again, and it’s been toe-to-toe for 25 days, two very good teams who have thrown everything at each other, left nothing out there, so I guess from a cricket fan’s point of view, 2-2 is probably fair, obviously we’re disappointed now to have not got the result that we wanted to give us a series win, so there’s obviously that disappointment, a little bit of frustration there as well from everyone.”

For India overall, batting remained exceptional right from the beginning of the series, barring the initial lower order collapses, with the team posting high totals and record hundreds. The bowling lineup at times was found lacking, with Bumrah not fit enough to give his 100% in all of the three Tests he featured in, and his strike partner Mohammed Siraj taking time to fit the bill as a match-winning bowler.

Some playing-eleven selection decisions remained hotly debated both in the batting and bowling lineup, leading to murmurs of bias. The continuing exclusion of top order batter Abhimanyu Easwaran and highly rated wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and the only left-arm pacer in the squad Arshdeep Singh not getting a bowl did not go well with many experts and fans.

Records and milestones achieved in the The Oval Test and the Series

• The 6-run margin of India’s victory is their narrowest in Tests in terms of runs, the previous record being 13 runs in Mumbai in 2004 while defending 107 against Australia. The six-run margin is also England’s joint-third narrowest defeat in Tests.
• Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna became only the second Indian bowling pair to take four or more wickets in both innings of a Test. Bishan Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna did it against Australia in Delhi in 1969.
• The 23 wickets for Siraj in the series are the joint-highest for an India bowler in a Test series in England, level with Jasprit Bumrah’s 23 wickets in 2021-22.
• This is the 4^th consecutive Test series that England have failed to win against India. Their previous series win against India came in 2018, when they won 4-1 at home. England’s longest streak without a series win against India is five, between 1996 and 2011.
• India’s win-loss record in the fifth and sixth matches of an away Test series is 1-10. Before the six-run win at The Oval, India had lost 10 of 17 such matches, while seven ended in draws. At home, India have a 7-4 record in 27 such Tests.

Following are some of the other records and milestones highlighted by Sportstar in its wrap-up of the series:

• Shubman Gill (754) broke Sunil Gavaskar’s record (732 against West Indies in 1978) of most runs by an Indian captain in a Test series. Gill’s effort is second only to the 810 runs scored by Australian captain Don Bradman during the 1936-37 Ashes series.
• Gill (754), however, fell just short of going past Gavaskar’s record (774 against West Indies in 1970-71) of most runs by an Indian in a Test series.
• England skipper Ben Stokes completed 7,000 runs in Test cricket — only the third player to record 7,000 runs and 200 wickets in Tests.  Jacques Kallis and Garfield Sobers had achieved the feat before Stokes.
• With his five-wicket hauls at Leeds and Lord’s, Jasprit Bumrah now holds the record for most fifers by an Indian bowler in England. The record previously belonged to Lala Amarnath, Kapil Dev, B Chandrasekhar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Vinoo Mankad, Chetan Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Mohammad Nissar and Surendranath as all of them had two five-wicket hauls in England.
• With his tons at Leeds and Lord’s, KL Rahul now holds the record for most centuries by an Indian opener in England.
• For only the fourth time this century, all five Tests in a series went to the final day with other instances including the England tour of South Africa (2004-05), South Africa tour of West Indies (2001) and the 2017-18 Ashes in Australia.
• Gill became just the fifth Indian Test batter to register a century on his captaincy debut during the first Test at Headingley, Leeds.
• With his knock of 269 in Birmingham, Gill became the sixth Indian captain to score a double hundred after MAK Pataudi, Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli.
• Gill (754), KL Rahul (532) and Ravindra Jadeja (516) became just the sixth trio in Test history to pass 500 runs in the same series for a single team.
• Yashasvi Jasiswal became the seventh Indian opener to register a hundred in England and Australia, joining an exclusive list which includes Vinoo Mankad, Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Virender Sehwag, Murali Vijay and KL Rahul.
• With his twin tons at Leeds, Rishab Pant went past Dhoni (six) for most centuries in the longest format by an Indian wicketkeeper as he took his tally to eight.
• With his five-wicket haul at Lord’s, Bumrah broke Kapil’s record (12) of most fifers by an Indian bowler in away Tests.
• A total of 21 centuries were scored during this five-match contest, going level with a Test series held between Australia and West Indies in 1955. Out of 21, India scored 12 which is also joint-most for a team in a single series.
• With his three centuries in the series, Joe Root went past Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara (38) to take the fourth spot on the list of batters with most Test tons. Only Tendulkar (51), Kallis (45) and Ricky Ponting (41) have more.
• The 45 bowled dismissals were the most in any men’s Test series since 1984, and the most in a series held in England since 1976.
• Bumrah equalled Ishant Sharma’s all-time Indian record of 51 wickets in England with his 14 scalps in the series.
• Jamie Smith scored 184 in the first innings of the second Test in Birmingham, the highest score by an England wicketkeeper in the longest format. He went past Alec Stewart’s record of 173 against New Zealand in 1997.
• Siraj recorded the second-most overs bowled by an Indian pacer in a series since June 2002, falling only behind Bumrah (187 overs on England tour in 2021-22).
• Root went past Rahul Dravid (210) for an all-time record of most catches in Test cricket. He achieved the feat as he collected a difficult grab of Karun Nair at first slip during the second day of the third Test at Lord’s.
• With his incredible knock in Birmingham, Gill broke Kohli’s (200 against West Indies in North Sound in 2016) record for the highest score by an Indian captain in away Tests, as well as his record (254 not out against South Africa in Pune in 2019) of the highest score by an Indian Test skipper. It is also the highest score by an Indian in England, a record previously held by Gavaskar (221 at The Oval in 1979).
• India’s 336-run victory at Edgbaston is its biggest by runs in an away Test, going past its previous record of 318 against West Indies in 2019.
• India scored 3,809 runs across five matches this series, surpassing its previous record of 3,270 runs, achieved during a six-match Test series against West Indies at home in 1978-79. In the overall list of the highest run tallies by a team during a Test series, India sits second. Australia leads the list with 3,877 runs, which it amassed during the 1989 Ashes series in England.
• With 7,187 runs, the five-match contest had the second-highest runs aggregate recorded in a Test series, only bettered by the six-Test 1993 Ashes in the UK (7221).
• With 13,543 runs, Root went past Dravid (13,288), Kallis (13,289) and Ponting (13,378) to take the second spot on the list of batters with most runs in Test cricket. Only Tendulkar (15,921) is ahead.