There’s something about England, a fourth innings chase, and Headingley that just… seems inevitable now. England have committed yet another astonishing theft – chasing down 371 against India – for their second highest successful chase in Test match cricket ever! If you thought Edgbaston 2022 was a mere aberration, it wasn’t! With the turbocharged Stokes/McCullum combination now in charge of England’s Test team, they continue to rewrite the manual – assuming it was written with a felt-tip pen, in ALL CAPS!
Bazball Finds Its Sweet Spot
Let’s not kid ourselves: this was not attritional. England scored 352 runs on day five. Only Australia has scored more on a last day to win a Test (404 at this very venue in 1948). This was no wild slog but a case study in controlled aggression. Like a storm breaking early, Duckett’s 149 lit up the sky, and Crawley rode the thunder all the way to a 188-run stand. That’s the highest ever in the fourth innings of a Test match. That’s not just Bazball; that is just a planned systematic dismantling.
Duckett’s innings also included records, becoming the highest individual fourth-innings score against India. And those (were they the days) when the English openers could hardly make double figures against the new ball? That seems so long ago now.
India’s Rare Misfire Despite Monumental Numbers
India didn’t just sit there and take the beating; they scored 835 runs—the fourth-most runs ever scored by a team in a losing effort. That’s a stat painful in two ways: a) In the moment on the field; b) On the plane coming home. Five centuries in a Test usually equals a win. Not this Test. India became the first team in history to lose a match while having five centurions in its lineup.
This loss not only hurt in terms of runs, but it also hurt in the context, with WTC points at stake and more difficult series (South Africa and India) coming up. This was an obvious home banker; instead, England made it into a super-charged lesson in momentum-changing cricket.
And we also had Prasidh Krishna, who set an unfortunate record himself, as he now holds the record for the first bowler to go for 90+ runs at over a run-a-ball in both innings of a Test. His figures were more reflective of T20 carnage than of a Test match.
Headingley: The New Home of Impossible Chases
There’s something about this ground. Three successful 350-plus chases at Headingley now more than any venue in Test history. From the Stokes miracle in 2019 to this most recent demolition, it has transformed into a cauldron of madness for bowlers and a heaven for fourth-innings heroes.
Here we go again, England has decided to make it their playground again. Whether it’s Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, or the new-age aggressors of Duckett and Brook, this side seems to have done away with the traditional ways of playing the game, and that uniqueness is worth its weight in gold.
England’s Headingley heroics were about more than just runs and records—it was a statement. A message to the cricketing world that chasing 300+ in the fourth innings was not a futile effort, but a legitimate strategy. For India, this could be a lesson learned. For the fans? Just one more entertaining side-story.
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