{"id":43373,"date":"2025-08-04T14:04:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/43373\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:04:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:04:16","slug":"stuart-broad-criticises-lazy-decision-to-call-off-oval-test-with-england-india-series-on-a-knife-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/43373\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuart Broad criticises \u2018lazy decision\u2019 to call off Oval Test with England-India series on a knife edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stuart Broad<\/a> criticised the decision to call off day four\u2019s play at The Oval<\/a> with the fifth Test match between England and India on a knife edge<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ground staff and umpires came together in the middle to discuss conditions after play had been suspended for bad light and heavy rain. And despite the rain easing and brightening skies, play was called off at 6pm, to loud boos from the crowd.<\/p>\n

The players will return on Monday to finish off the contest, with England needing 35 runs and India needing four wickets. England currently lead the series 2-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill 20 mins away from possible start time,\u201d Broad tweeted at 6.25pm. \u201cEveryone has their sunglasses on at the train station. Felt the supporters deserved to see a finish to that Test Match today. Felt a lazy decision to call it off at 6pm in my opinion. I wonder who makes it?\u201d<\/p>\n

However neither side grumbled about the decision, after another hard day\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Joe Root salutes Graham Thorpe after reaching his century (Ben Whitley\/PA) (PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Joe Root<\/a>, who hit a century to drag England back into the match, told the BBC: \u201cIt is quite a fitting end for how the rest of the series has gone. It has ebbed and flowed all of the way through and this test is exactly the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in for a cracker, we are in a good position. We have another heavy roller available. Things might happen quicker with the new ball, it might be easier to score.\u201d<\/p>\n

A night\u2019s break and an extra use of the heavy roller could play into England\u2019s hands but a saturated outfield meant the tourists were not complaining.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can see it\u2019s pretty wet out there,\u201d said Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel<\/a>. \u201cIn a way that\u2019s out of our control so all we can focus on is doing a good warm-up in the morning, get the boys ready to get the ball in the right area and create a little bit of excitement again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Woakes<\/a>, who has not featured since badly damaging his left shoulder while fielding on Friday, has remained with the team and is willing to bat at No 11<\/a> with his arm in a sling if required.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably saw him in his whites in the dressing room. He\u2019s all in, like the rest of us,\u201d said Root.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, he\u2019s in a huge amount of pain. But it means a huge amount to him and it just shows the character and the person that he is, that he\u2019s willing to put his body on the line like that for England.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it does come to that, hopefully he can get us across the line and win an incredible series.\u201d<\/p>\n

additional reporting by PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-43373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}