Harry Brook has revealed that England took a conscious decision to “go back at India” after tensions between the two sides escalated during their tight 22-run victory at Lord’s last week.
There were various flashpoints between the two teams during the five days of the hard-fought third Test — from Zak Crawley’s confrontation with Shubman Gill on the third evening to Brydon Carse’s altercation with Ravindra Jadeja after an inadvertent collision while running between the wickets, and a number of audibly loud send-offs to dismissed batsmen from both fielding sides.
Brook said England — who have made one change for the fourth Test at Old Trafford starting on Wednesday, with Liam Dawson replacing the injured Shoaib Bashir — had decided to hit back at India, particularly after they had confronted England’s openers in the final over of the third day and that head coach Brendon McCullum had told his team that they were “too nice”.
“Baz actually said a few days before the Test that we are too nice sometimes and I brought it up the night before the last day — I said, ‘I think tomorrow is a perfect opportunity to really get stuck into them,’ ” Brook said.
“We had a little conversation the night before, where everybody saw them guys get stuck into Creeps and Ducky [Crawley and Ben Duckett] and we just thought, ‘We’re not having that’. We all piled into them.
“I’ve had a lot of compliments. Everybody says it was awesome to watch and it looked like there was 11 versus two out there when we were fielding and it was good fun. It made fielding a lot more enjoyable.
“We try to play in the spirit of the game as much as possible, but them lads went hard at Crawley and Ducky on that night when [Jasprit] Bumrah bowled that single over. So we watched that and we reassessed and we thought it was the right time to go back at them. It might have given them that little bit of added pressure and thankfully they ended up crumbling and we won the game.
Brook shakes hands with Siraj after the bowler was left crestfallen when his wicket gave victory to England at the end of a feisty Test at Lord’s
RICHARD PELHAM/AP
“The opportunity that arose for us to not be the nice guys was because of what they did. We just thought, ‘We’re not standing for that’. We had a conversation and said, ‘It’s time to not be those nice guys that we have been before’. We were doing it within the spirit of the game. We weren’t going out there effing and jeffing at them and being nasty people.”
Mohammed Siraj was fined 15 per cent of his match fee for the send-off he gave to Duckett, which included what appeared to be physical contact between the pair, but the India seamer said the tensions were “definitely” going to continue for the rest of the series.
“What a player needs is sledging,” Siraj said. “So I thought I would go and talk something and say something [to Joe Root especially] because he was playing so defensively, so I thought I would go and say something so he’s thinking, ‘OK, he’s coming up to me.’ ”
Siraj was overheard on the stump microphone during Root’s second innings asking, “Where is your Bazball now?”
Siraj was heard asking Root: “Where is your Bazball now?”
ASHLEY WESTERN/SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL
Dawson, 35, has only played three Test matches, the last of which was against South Africa at Trent Bridge in 2017, but his performances in the County Championship in recent years — taking 49 wickets in 2023, 53 in 2024 and 21 so far this season — have earned him a recall in preference to the Somerset left-arm spinner Jack Leach. He also adds depth to England’s batting, with a first-class average of 35.29. Bashir, who sustained a fracture on his left hand during India’s first innings at Lord’s, has had surgery and will miss the rest of the series.
India’s selection plans have been hit by a number of injury concerns, though they have confirmed that Bumrah will lead the seam attack. The 31-year-old was expected to only play in three of the five Test matches because of an back issue that is being managed. Old Trafford will be his third, having missed the second Test at Edgbaston, but if India level the series in Manchester and it goes to a decider at the Oval he could be asked to play a fourth, such is his importance to India’s attack.
India, who will name their team at the toss on Wednesday, need to replace the all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, who has been ruled out of the series after injuring his left knee. The left-arm seamer, Arshdeep Singh, has also been ruled out of the fourth Test after sustaining an impact injury to his left thumb while bowling in the nets, and Akash Deep is a doubt because of a “groin niggle”. The seam bowler Anshul Kamboj, 24, has been added to the India squad.
The pace of play and slow over rates have come under scrutiny during the series. Brook believes that it is not unreasonable for teams to be expected to get through 90 overs in a day, but suggested that India are as much, if not more, to blame for slow play.
“I think there were 75 overs on Wednesday last week, which is pretty poor,” he said. “If I’m being brutally honest, we can be quicker, but they can definitely be quicker at stages. When they’re batting it affects us a lot as well because they’re always changing the gloves or they’re getting treatment or whatever.”
England v India
Fourth Test
Old Trafford
Wednesday-Sunday
TV Sky Sports
England XI Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Liam Dawson, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer.