Agency :
On a cool, overcast morning at Edgbaston this reborn England team climbed their highest fourth-innings mountain of all time, the final steps of their ascent to a target of 378 runs sealing a seven-wicket victory over India like it was a casual stroll in the park.
As Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow scampered the final run at exactly midday it not only drew a five-match series played out over the best part of a year 2-2 but surely sent a shock wave through the game; England, under new management in Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, are a now side to seriously fear on the chase in Test cricket.
After all, this was their fourth such feat this summer, surpassing the 277, 299 and 296 they knocked off against New Zealand and also their greatest ever chase, the day when Stokes pulled off his career-defining Ashes heist at Headingley in 2019 and 359 was taken down. This time there was not nearly as much drama.
Instead, Stokes could sit on the balcony as the next man in and watch an ice-cool pursuit driven by celestial centuries from Root, 142 not out from 173 balls, and Bairstow, unbeaten on 114 from 145. In the case of the former it was his 11th since the start of 2021 and a 28th overall, the latter a fourth in five innings of relentless form.
India, so dominant at Lord’s and the Oval when they took a 2-1 lead last summer, were practically powerless to prevent the two Yorkshiremen from finessing the final 119 runs in the space of 90 minutes on the fifth morning. The inevitability was remarkable once the early exchanges failed to produce the breakthrough the tourists so craved.
