Even as a slew of England players kept the verbal spray on him for not accepting their offer to draw the fourth Test, Ravindra Jadeja kept smiling and responding to each of their sledges in his characteristic cool manner.
Jadeja was sipping water during the drinks break brought out by Karun Nair and Prasidh Krishna. Standing a bit away from him was Washington Sundar, who too was hydrating himself. It was the end of the 138th over and Jadeja was on 89 and Washington on 81.
Even as Ben Stokes walked towards from the other side of the pitch with an extended hand, and conveyed to the umpire Ahsan Raza from Pakistan, who turned to query Jadeja if he agrees. The negation came, triggering frustration from England. At one point, Jofra Archer said, “If you want a hundred you should have batted like it earlier”. Jadeja kept smiling and drinking.
Scored a hundred, saved the Test, farmed ♾ aura! 💁♂#RavindraJadeja didn’t hesitate, till the end 👀#ENGvIND 👉 5th TEST | Starts THU, 31st July, 2:30 PM | Streaming on JioHotstar! pic.twitter.com/cc3INlS07P
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) July 27, 2025
As he finished his drinks, and was slipping his gloves on and walking towards the pitch, Zak Crawley, England’s opener, asked him, “is it your decision?” To which Jadeja replied with a laugh, “No, No, No!”
Now Jamie Smith too has joined the duo, and watches Crawley tell Jadeja: “We will bowl bouncers at you if you want” Jadeja again laughs and says, “But you have been doing that all day!”
Crawley backpedals his way but his opening partner Ben Duckett enters the scene. He gets close to Jadeja and says, “How long do you need, an hour?”
Jadeja, standing pretty relaxed, replies, “See, I can’t say I don’t want to play”.
Duckett then points towards Washington Sundar, who is a short distance from the stumps and still with Karun and Prasidh, and says, “But then it works that you get to a hundred, he gets to 90. And we have to wait for him” Jadeja is busy scratching his guard with his right boot, and it’s not audible what he says with a smile.
Duckett responds with, “It’s a bit late in the day for that. We haven’t got two hours for him to get to hundred.” Jadeja crosses his legs, leans on his bat as if he would at non-strikers end and smiles again as he looks at Duckett.
Story continues below this ad
That’s when Stokes get into the act again. He walks to Jadeja and Duckett, and says, “you are going to get a Test hundred against Harry Brook and Ben Duckett.”
Jadeja’s response? “So, what do you want me to do?” To which Stokes says, gesturing towards dressing room, “just walk off!”And Jadeja says, “but dressing room doesn’t want me to.”
Duckett stars to say something about Washington getting to a hundred, when Zak Crawley returns to the crime scene, saying, “If you shake our hands, it’s done!” Jadeja spins around, sees Crawley, then turns towards Stokes and Duckett to say, “I can’t do anything!”
