England's behaviour towards India batsmen was tedious and absurd - no wonder opponents can't stand 'spoiled kid' Ben Stokes and Co

England’s opponents have never needed an excuse to dislike them – and on Sunday evening Ben Stokes’s team gift-wrapped another exhibit for the prosecution.

Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja were perfectly entitled to complete centuries that put the cherry on top of India’s gutsy draw in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, a result captain Shubman Gill hailed as ‘no less than a win’. Yet England reacted as if the Indians were deliberately messing with their plans for the evening.

Three days after the departure from the dressing room of short-term consultant Gilbert Enoka – the mental-skills coach who famously warned the All Blacks about ‘dickheads’ – England got stuck into Sundar and Jadeja for the crime of doing their jobs. Perhaps Enoka should return in time for Thursday’s fifth Test at The Oval.

England’s sledging, tedious all day, grew absurd. ‘If you wanted a hundred, you should have batted like it earlier,’ said Jofra Archer, audible on the stump mic. Ben Duckett asked: ‘How long do you need – an hour?’ Harry Brook wouldn’t stop talking: ‘F***ing hell, Washi, get on with it!’

So what if the game had long been destined for a draw? So what if Stokes didn’t want to risk his tired bowlers for one last burst ahead of the final Test? So what if England are, or at least claim to be, less interested in personal milestones than India?

It was not for them to impose their world view on two players who had battled hard for more than 50 overs and now wanted statistical reward for their excellence.

Ben Stokes's England had no leg to stand on after their antics in Sunday's draw at Old Trafford

Ravindra Jadeja (left) and Washington Sundar were well within their rights to keep batting all night if they wished, without Harry Brook chirping away in frustration at not getting them out

Jadeja had already ticked off four half-centuries in this series without reaching three figures, and Sundar’s previous-highest Test score was 96 not out. Who were England to deny them now, or to belittle their efforts?

In fact, Gill would have been within his rights to keep them in the field for the entirety of the final 15 overs, and not simply declare once both his players had ticked off their hundreds. With only three days between the fourth and fifth Tests, the temptation must have been to make England’s lives as hard as possible.

Deep down, Stokes knew his side’s behaviour went beyond the pale, however exhausted they were after more than five sessions in the middle, and however thwarted they felt by yet another lifeless pitch that cancelled out any concept of home advantage.

Asked in the post-match press conference whether he would have accepted the offer of a draw if a young batsman on his side had been approaching a maiden Test hundred, he replied without his usual clarity and conviction.

The answer was obvious, but Stokes had backed himself into a corner and struggled to find his way out.

It’s more than 30 years since the cricket-loving American journalist Mike Marqusee published his seminal book Anyone But England, an attempt to grapple with the class-ridden hypocrisies of the English game, and to explain why England could never be anyone’s second-favourite team. It read like a rallying cry for the wider cricketing community.

Even now, Marqusee’s position holds true: partly for historical and cultural reasons, critics are quicker to pounce on England than they are on other teams. And they can’t bear it when England start to throw their weight around.

For many, the Bazball project has proved equally triggering, with the naysayers preferring to focus on English slips of the tongue, to interpret gaucheness as arrogance, than to celebrate the bold and innovative cricket that has given fans so much pleasure over the last three years.

Shubman Gill was hardly blameless when he went after Zak Crawley for timewasting at Lord's

England invoked the 'spirit of the game' after Jonny Bairstow's stumping at Lord's in 2023

Others, it’s true, are held to different standards. Had Stokes accused his opponents of breaching the ‘spirit of the game’, as Gill did following Zak Crawley’s time-wasting at Lord’s, England would have been laughed at for invoking an imaginary concept, just as they were when they grumbled about the stumping of Jonny Bairstow by Australia’s Alex Carey in 2023. But because the point was made by the captain of India, it was allowed to slide.

Is this unfair? Perhaps. But England should be more aware of the dynamic than they appear to be, and avoid providing their critics with cannon fodder. Instead, they made it all too easy for the former Indian Test batsman Sanjay Manjrekar to describe Stokes’s behaviour as like that of a ‘spoiled kid’.

England have had plenty of warnings. Duckett is still scolded by Indian fans for suggesting Yashasvi Jaiswal was copying the Bazballers when he scored back-to-back double-centuries against them in early 2024. Brook snapped at Sri Lanka’s bowlers when they tried to bore him out last summer at the Oval. Stokes said he would have withdrawn the Bairstow stumping appeal had he been captain.

These comments smack of a superiority that buttresses a stereotype, and irritates the world. By the time Stokes tried to talk his way out of the hole created by him and his team on Sunday evening, it was already too late.

Click here to read article