England captain Ben Stokes believed that the lack of a century beside their names would not have diminished the efforts of Washington Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja in salvaging the Manchester Test. The two left-handers came together just before lunch on the final day. Jadeja, reprieved off the very first ball he faced, and Washington, measured and resolute, dug deep to bat through 55.2 overs for a 203-run stand that pulled India to safety and kept the possibility of a 2-2 finish alive.

As the final hour of play began, Stokes offered India a draw. But with Jadeja on 89 and Washington on 80, the visitors declined. They chose to bat on for five more overs. In that time, Jadeja reached his fifth Test hundred; Washington, his first.

What transpired in that was a theatre of the absurd. With the contest drained of suspense, England turned to part-timers. Harry Brook lobbed balls with a near-standstill action and, also added his voice to the England's virtue-singing chorus as India's batters went about trying to complete their 100s after battling hard for the best part of the day.

"The knock that those two played was very, very good," Stokes said at the press conference.

"The situation that India found themselves in there, with us opening the game slightly, that partnership was massive. You hold your hands up, they played incredibly, incredibly well. And I don't think there would've been too much more satisfaction from walking off a hundred not out, getting your team out of a tricky situation, than walking off at 80, 90 not out. That's what you've done for your team. You know, the 10 more runs or whatever it was ain't gonna change the fact that you've managed to get your team out of a very, very, very tricky situation and almost saved your team from a series defeat before the last game."

Stokes clarified that the use of Brook and Joe Root with the ball was a pragmatic choice. After 257 overs in the field in the game and with a short turnaround before the Oval Test, preserving the frontline bowlers was a priority.

"We were willing to take it as far as we possibly could and throw everything at them that we did, but it got to that point where there was obviously only one result left on the table and I wasn't going to be risking any of my frontline bowlers in a situation like that, especially when we've got a quick turnaround," he said.

“The only other person who actually has any bowling workload in them is Harry Brook. But I did have to say to him, please don't do anything stupid. We've been out in the field for 200-and-whatever overs, we've got a quick turnaround, so just do what needs to be done. I said don't do anything daft: don't pull a side, don't pull a hamstring. We knew what was going on there.”