4 min readJul 13, 2025 02:16 PM IST
First published on: Jul 13, 2025 at 02:16 PM IST
Ashes is too grim a nom de guerre. In 2025, the India-England skirmishes deserve to be called the Popcorn series, with the midpoint on Day 3 of the five-Test series being the inflection point.
It is not often that cheeky delaying tactics of ‘The last over’-England types get an EOD press debriefing to add further intrigue to happenings on the field. But even the by now famous last-over when Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett batted, had a meta last-ball-of-last-over intrigue, when Jasprit Bumrah bowled an absolute jaffa to Crawley.
Crawley is clearly not India’s favouritest Zak. That will always be Zaheer Khan. But after all the drama of delays he put into the first five balls of the last over to consume time, he left the field with a bit of suspense, when India’s ultimate wizard Bumrah bowled a scorcher that struck his hand.
Like a good Marvel movie with its post-credits scene, England’s coaching consultant Tim Southee told the press, “Zak will be assessed overnight…” which nicely raised anticipation for Day 4. While it might all seem as part of the Act, the cryptic deadpan-faced explanation had a bit of intrigue because of that last ball. “After the final ball of the over whistled past Crawley’s outside edge – it was an absolute jaffa from Bumrah – the opener was immediately off, presumably to get further treatment…” Sky Sports wrote in its report. That overnight assessment, though sounding in-script, might even have a grain of truth if that last ball impact is anything to go by.
Earlier, England had successfully ensured only one of two overs got bowled in 8 minutes. Crawley’s namesake tactics had left Indians seething after he backed away twice from Jasprit Bumrah’s third delivery citing sight screen and assorted reasons.
After defending Bumrah’s fourth ball, the England batsman had taken off his glove, winced at his ‘injured’ hand and called the physio in a performance that might have missed Baftas narrowly and ended second place to Gulbadin Naib’s hamstring collapse against Bangladesh at the T20 World Cup.
The overnight assessment update saw a whiny debriefing followup from Southee. “I’m not sure what India were complaining about with Gill lying down and getting a massage yesterday,” said Southee, referring to Gill calling for treatment on the field on Day 2 as the hapless umpires caught strays in streams of criticism at allowing Gill & his gander to get away with their own drama which finally levelled scores at 387.
Dinesh Karthik kept guffawing in comms and described the scenes. “Exactly what you want to see. The aggression, the passion, both teams wanting to win real bad and going hard at each other.”
Michael Atherton after adfing his ide to the great theatre added to Sky Sports: “I think I would maybe prefer to be in India’s camp – because of the difficulty of batting in the third innings and because they have Bumrah and two spinners on a dry, wearing pitch.
“England have to see off the first hour [on Sunday] when Bumrah will come in hard for five or six overs. They can’t take liberties against him. If they get through that, they have batters to push the game on.
“A Test match can be a slow burner but then things can happen quickly.”
Crawley vs Bumrah Act 2 resumes at 3.30 pm IST.
After defending Bumrah's fourth ball, Zak Crawley had taken off his glove, winced at his 'injured' hand and called the physio. (AP) 
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