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Ben Stokes\u2019 latest injury-defying act has failed to inspire England as just a second draw of the Bazball era following stubborn India resistance at Old Trafford kept the Test series alive.<\/p>\n
A troublesome left leg and a fresh problem in his right shoulder failed to deter the England captain, who snared KL Rahul for 90 on the last morning of the fourth Test to give his side hope of moving into an unassailable 3-1 series lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jofra Archer then dismissed Shubman Gill for 103 on the stroke of lunch but Joe Root dropping Ravindra Jadeja from the next ball proved crucial as he and Washington Sundar batted out the rest of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, there were farcical scenes at the finish on Sunday when it became clear there would be no winner as India\u2019s batters elected against shaking hands with 15 overs left \u2013 the earliest opportunity a draw could be agreed \u2013 so both could get their hundreds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Root and Harry Brook provided buffet bowling to speed things along, with Jadeja getting to his ton first and and Sundar followed to signal the end of proceedings, with India on 4-424 \u00a0and a lead of 113.<\/p>\n
Stokes fumed at Jadeja: \u201cYou really want to score a Test century against Harry Brook?\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Indian veteran replied \u201cIt\u2019s not in my hands\u201d, English fielder Zak Crawley chided him: \u201cThen shake hands, it\u2019s embarrassing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stokes also said \u201cif you wanted to score a century, you should have batted like you wanted to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar went into bat for the tourists, claiming England were \u201cmaking a mockery of the game\u201d by bowling part-timers to finish the game quickly.<\/p>\n
With the fifth Test getting under way on Thursday, much of the focus will likely centre on Stokes\u2019 availability after he was left weary and wounded in Manchester.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ben Stokes reacts as he offers a draw. (Photo by Alex Davidson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
He battled cramp in his left leg when batting on Friday and reported general soreness on Saturday, which meant he did not bowl as Rahul and Gill took India from 2-0 to 2-174 \u00a0overnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stokes returned to the fray on the final morning and made the breakthrough with his 20th delivery. Rahul was beaten by a nip-backer that thudded into his knee roll in front of middle stump.<\/p>\n
Having moved on to a titanic 700 runs for the series, Gill brought up a fourth three-figure score of the trip off 228 balls with a push into the offside for a single.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By then, England had the second new ball, taken 40 minutes before lunch, and Archer claimed the prize wicket of Gill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Root parried then dropped the rebound at head height after Jadeja flirted at a rising delivery from Archer first up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the pitch flattening out, Sundar and Jadeja grew increasingly confident through the afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both teams must agree on the draw and England were clearly unhappy at the pair continuing, with Brook eventually called upon to send down some floaty off-spin while Root was kept on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jadeja got to his hundred in a blizzard of boundaries, eventually finishing on 107 not out, before Washington brought up his first Test century in Brook\u2019s next over before hands were shaken five overs after England had first offered them.<\/p>\n
Stokes said: \u201cI\u2019ll always try and give everything that I possibly can. Try and run through a brick wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ask the guys up there to run through a brick wall for the team. I\u2019ll always try and do the same to try and lead by example in that sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cBowling, being out in the field all that kind of stuff it is tough work, but pretty sore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked \u00a0about his shoulder, he added: \u201cIt\u2019s just a workload thing, got through a fair few amount of overs and just everything starts creeping up on you.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll keep trying, keep going. As I always say to all the bowlers, pain is only an emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
India have their own injury issues for the final Test with coach Gautam Gambhir revealing that Rishabh Pant, who was taken from the field on a cart on the first day, \u00a0is ruled out with a foot fracture.<\/p>\n
with AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Set small text size A Set the default text size A Set large text size Ben Stokes\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,2129,740,952,13606,85],"class_list":["post-26241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-stokes","tag-cricket","tag-featured","tag-ravindra-jadeja","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}