INDIA TOUR OF ENGLAND, 2025
The mood, unsurprisingly, has curdled over the last two Tests – edgy, antagonistic © Getty
There are two ways to reach The Oval on the London Underground. The Northern Line drops you near enough to hear the hum of the turnstiles. Well almost. You get off at the station with the same name as the ground, rise from the platform through corridors lined with cricket-themed tiles, and step out into the light. A short turn and the sandblasted brickwork of the old Surrey pavilion comes into view. Or, you could take the Victoria Line to Vauxhall, cross the steady tide of commuters spilling out of the national rail station, pass a couple of watering holes, then follow the curve of the road until the ground reveals itself, tucked behind red-brick flats and the gleaming Alec Stewart gates.
Both routes get you there. One’s quick, the other throws up more sights and sounds along the way. India and England have taken the scenic route to The Oval. Five-day Tests, all four of them. No result handed over easily, no match blown away in a blur. Every session – there have been 59 in all – has stretched and breathed. Fitting, really, for a series just renamed after Tendulkar and Anderson – two men who made longevity in this format an art.
But the series hasn’t just gone the distance, it’s also taken a toll. Seven bowlers have sent down more than 100 overs. At Old Trafford, Ben Stokes winced through cramp in his hamstring and pain in his bicep. Jasprit Bumrah willed himself through that Test, squeezing out whatever was left, even if only one ball out of 198 crept above 140 kph on the speed gun. The England captain is now ruled out with injury; India’s talisman is likely to be rested, to avoid the same aftershock of overexertion. But others, like Chris Woakes or Mohammed Siraj, will have to run again, under the shadow of the old gasometer, decommissioned long ago and now being repurposed into flats, not much use for refuelling bowling tanks anyway.
It felt inevitable. With efforts this large being summoned, something had to give. In this case, the mind as much as the bodies. The mood, unsurprisingly, has curdled over the last two Tests – edgy, antagonistic. India will still feel they hold the moral victory: for how they stayed firm in Manchester, before and during handshake-gate, and for how visibly it unsettled their opponents. They’ll also know, in a series of small margins and long days, they could just as easily have been the side leading 2-1. But the ledger still has room for balance. One final push, one last spell of resolve – and they could walk back from The Oval all square.
When:England vs India, 5th Test, July 31 – August 4 2025, 15:30 IST, 11:00 Local
Where: The Oval, London
What to expect: London baked under a heatwave just three weeks ago before the Lord’s Test, but now the weather has cooled, with light rain forecast on at least three days, including the opener. Every County Championship game here this season saw teams bowl first, and the highest scores usually come in the third innings. The one outlier came in the most recent fixture: Surrey’s mammoth 820/9 declared after being sent in by Durham, powered by Dom Sibley’s triple hundred. But “this one looks to have a lot more live grass on the wicket than the other wickets we’ve been on,” Stokes said on match eve. England have also dropped their specialist spinner. So expect a bit more assistance there for the seamers.
Team News:
England
The hosts will be without their talismanic captain for the final Test, with Surrey’s own Ollie Pope stepping in to lead. His county teammates Gus Atkinson and Jamie Overton return to the XI after building up their workloads in a second XI game and a county fixture, respectively. Also absent is Jofra Archer with back-to-back Tests deemed a stretch at this stage of his belated return. Stokes has been replaced by Jacob Bethell, who slots in at No. 6 and offers left-arm spin to cover for the omission of Liam Dawson, as England opt for a four-seamer setup.
Playing XI:Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (c), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jacob Bethell, Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Jamie Overton, Josh Tongue
India
The obvious switch is that of Dhruv Jurel coming in for the injured Rishabh Pant. The absence of their most consistent batter from the last five years will test any temptation to veer away from sacrificing depth for more bowling bite. Akash Deep is set to return and Bumrah is likely to be rested although Gill wanted to keep his cards close to his chest. That would leave India with a toss-up between Prasidh Krishna or Arshdeep Singh to replace Anshul Kamboj, who had a slow start to his Test career in Manchester. The pitch and India’s need for depth is likely to rule Kuldeep Yadav out of contention once again.
Probable XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Washington Sundar, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Shardul Thakur, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna/Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj
Did you know?
– India have two wins (1971 and 2021) from 15 Tests at The Oval. They beat England here in 2021 but lost their last game here, the WTC Final against Australia in 2023
– Shubman Gill needs 89 runs to beat Sir Don Bradman’s record of 810 runs in Ashes 1936/37 – the most for anyone in a debut series as captain
– Joe Root has two hundreds at The Oval, both against India – 149* in 2014 and 125 in 2018.
What they said:
“Yeah, it’s been a tough, gruelling series, but it’s class to play. It’s a real test of character, it’s a test of physicality, all that kind of stuff. And I think that the way in which both teams have, you know, fronted up every single day and every single session and given everything for their countries is testament to how much this format means to England and India and every other team in the world.” – Ben Stokes
“If you look at the kind of cricket that we have played, sometimes the scorecard of the series doesn’t determine that. I think every match that we have played, it was very difficult to decide which team is going to win after four days of cricket. If we are able to do that for every match, for four matches coming outside of India with a relatively young team, I think it is going to be a big achievement for us if we are able to level the series. And the series has been a great learning curve for me. You know, there are some things that you can only learn from experience. And I’ve learned so much from these four matches that we have played. And hopefully, we are going to finish on a high.” – Shubman Gill
© Cricbuzz
