{"id":49579,"date":"2025-08-07T04:50:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T04:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/49579\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T04:50:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T04:50:19","slug":"why-england-v-india-was-the-best-series-i-have-ever-covered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/49579\/","title":{"rendered":"Why England v India was the best series I have ever covered"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been covering and writing about cricket for 12 years. I\u2019ve watched Ashes battles, home World Cup wins for both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams, entertaining T20 finals days, dramatic County Championship title wins and more rain delays than I can count \u2014 but this Test series between England and India has been the best.<\/p>\n

Perhaps there is an element of recency bias, but I cannot recall a Test series that has given so much on every day: so many talking points, so much drama and tension, such displays of human endurance and resilience. The players were all in, and so were the fans.<\/p>\n

One of my roles during a Test is writing our daily live file. It means I\u2019m there, really there \u2014 glued to the cricket, yes, but also tuned into the rhythm of the ground. The role demands not just covering the wickets and the runs, but adding colour and texture; the things you wouldn\u2019t get from watching the television or listening to the radio. What the vibe inside the ground is, what the players are doing in the nets before the gates open, what the chat in the press box is, what\u2019s happening on the concourse, what everyone is having for lunch, whether there are any celebrities in the ground, what we\u2019re being told about injuries \u2014 as well as monitoring several weather apps and rain radars. I try to let readers feel the match; all of it, not just what\u2019s happening on the 22 yards of cut grass.<\/p>\n

\"Indian<\/p>\n

This series was special because both the players and the fans were all in<\/p>\n

STU FORSTER\/GETTY<\/p>\n

Barely a session went by when I wasn\u2019t delving into statistics while also keeping an eye on the players\u2019 body language and the expressions, shouts and screams of the spectators. Every day, in every ground, there was a full house. Speaking of spectators, one of the many wonderful things about a series against India is the dedication and passion of their supporters. They turn out in huge numbers \u2014 more than for any other opposition, even Australia \u2014 and always add to the electric atmosphere.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll let you into a secret: sometimes the press conferences at the end of a day\u2019s play can be a bit dull, with no one saying very much at all, but that wasn\u2019t the case in this series. Every day something had happened that we needed to ask about, with both sides continuing the contest from the field into their press conference words. None of it nasty \u2014 all of it adding to the entertainment and the intense competition.<\/p>\n

In among the needle and the drama, there were individual performances that will be etched in the memory; Joe Root moving second on the all-time list of Test runscorers, the brilliant batting and captaincy by Shubman Gill, and the return of Jofra Archer, with his wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal causing Lord\u2019s to erupt.<\/p>\n

\"Zak<\/p>\n

The series was punctuated by moments of needle, like Gill\u2019s response to Crawley\u2019s time-wasting\u2026<\/p>\n

STU FORSTER\/GETTY<\/p>\n

\"Jofra<\/p>\n

\u2026 and moments of brilliance, like Archer\u2019s scorching first over on his return to Test cricket<\/p>\n

ED SYKES\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

And then there was that incredibly dramatic final Test at the Oval. After the fourth day finished on a knife edge thanks to a random shower, I sent my editor a text message, saying: \u201cCricket is both the most incredible and stupidest sport ever invented\u201d. That evening we sensed the ending might be special, but not as special as it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

There were 56 minutes and every ball was an event. I typed every delivery up for the live file \u2014 not something I would normally do \u2014 but this warranted it. Never have I been so glad I was taught to touch type. Finding the adjectives to convey the drama on the pitch, and the emotion of seeing a one-armed Chris Woakes walking out to bat, was something of a challenge.<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Capturing the emotion of Woakes walking out with one arm in a sling made this series unforgettable<\/p>\n

KIRSTY WIGGLESWORTH\/AP<\/p>\n

Some days in this job you worry there won\u2019t be enough to write about. That was never the case in this series and now, a couple of days after the end, as I reflect on the 25 days of cricket, more things keep coming back to me.<\/p>\n

At Headingley, I saw a fan dressed as a traffic cone doing karaoke with an India flag tied around his shoulders. At Edgbaston, I watched a steward help two youngsters get nearer the players for an autograph. At Lord\u2019s, I wandered around the concourse at lunchtime on the fourth day and listened to a fierce debate between a group of friends about whether Zak Crawley\u2019s time-wasting tactics on the third evening were legitimate. <\/p>\n

At the Oval, I stood up, along with 25,000 other people, to applaud Woakes walking to the crease and fell in love with Mohammed Siraj \u2014 a player who came into the series as Jasprit Bumrah\u2019s understudy and ended it as India\u2019s hero.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not usually overly sentimental or emotional about the cricket I am covering. It is better, in this job, to try to stay calm and objective, but this series brought smiles, a fair few swear words, and a reminder of how privileged I am to be there for these moments.<\/p>\n

The summer of 2019, with a home World Cup win at Lord\u2019s and that incredible Ashes innings by Ben Stokes at Headingley, had been the best summer of my career to date, but now this one, 2025, is right up there alongside it. I\u2019ll cover more series, I\u2019ll write more live files, but it\u2019s going to take something special to top the past six weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I have been covering and writing about cricket for 12 years. I\u2019ve watched Ashes battles, home World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-49579","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\/49579","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=49579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}