Sports
The agony, the ecstasy: 56 minutes of Test cricket at its most glorious
56 minutes of hell. 56 minutes of heaven. 56 minutes of the wildest ride of your goddamn life. 56 minutes that will change you forever.
It is enough time to move from the northern-most part of the Victoria Line to its lower reaches, brush shoulders as you walk up the escalator of Vauxhall Station and turn into the Harleyford Road to see the Kia Oval on the horizon.
Enough time to believe in new heroes. Enough time to laud old ones. Enough time to have your heart broken. Enough time to count yourself lucky that Test cricket, handed down by older generations more than it is ever picked up by newer ones, was handed to you. Enough time to find yourself a whole new world.
Enough time, on this rare occasion, to pick it up as a new convert. Because there would have been some in this pocket of south London who will have experienced Test cricket for the first time on Monday. Firstly, welcome. Usually, it lasts longer than this. And no, you will never see abything like this again.
The very existence of List A and T20 cricket – and yes, the Hundred, which begins on Tuesday – comes from the idea that the longest format is too long, too convoluted, too inconvenient to really grab you. Who knew all it takes was a small taste of the hard stuff to grab you by the throat and stir your soul.
This was 100% proof, undiluted, unhinged Test cricket. All you needed was a shot of 56 minutes. No human body, not even those reared on it, including those out there providing the action, could have dealt with much more.
Day five at the Kia Oval was sold out well before this match threatened to spill over from Sunday’s longer-form chaos. The gripping finale of the third Test, on the other side of the river at Lord’s, had resulted in Surrey selling over 5000 day five tickets in 24 hours. Eventually, 17,545 punters had what, unbeknownst to them, would prove to be the most golden of tickets.
At only £25 a pop for adults (20 for members) and £1 for kids, it was a sound investment given that refunds would be given if the day saw no play. Rarely has just 8.5 overs felt like a steal.
Such pricing usually brings a different kind of crowd to the first four days – especially at Lord’s – but, down at The Oval, the mix of English and Indian fans was as it had been throughout the match already. The state of the game, however, created a more feverish atmosphere, making this bowl ground feel taller and deeper, and even more self-contained. For 56 minutes, there was no outside world, for the outside world was every bit as transfixed with what was going on in here. Even the construction on the new apartment blocks in the old Gasholders ground to a halt.
The clamour as the players entered the field was louder than it had been all match. The English roars when Jamie Overton pulled the first ball for four were more guttural. The Indian jubilation when victory was sealed in Mohammed Siraj’s 186th over of the series came crashing back and forth like Atlantic-sized waves in a goldfish bowl.
The overnight break helped add to the tumult, even amid the fury of Sunday’s hastily called stumps, though an extra night’s sleep brought anything but. A new day’s new opportunity was now riddled with even more jeopardy.
How on earth did 35 more runs turn into the impossible job when 301 of the 374 had been cleared with such ease? Since when has getting through a tail that includes a man with only one functioning arm come replete with truly eternal legacy-making rewards and, thus, incomprehensible pressure?
There were simpler questions, too. Who wanted it? And the one we were all asking ourselves – who could bear it?
A familiar trope of Test cricket is that, at its best, it is a universal force. Happening to people, beyond their control and comprehension.
But that does a disservice to the protagonists. To Joe Root and Harry Brook, who dragged this fourth innings into legendary territory. And, finally, Siraj, who had bowled on 18 of the 25 days of these five Tests, sending down 50 or more balls on 12 of them. And his 1122nd delivery (including extra balls), sent down with as much vigour as the previous 1121, was his fifth-fastest of them all at 89mph/143kph. And the one that will live forever.
Moments like these always give you heroes. But they also give you kindred spirits. Those you are drawn to as much for their heroics as their fallibility.
Akash Deep, face down in the green beyond the boundary at midwicket, palms still stinging from Gus Atkinson’s heave to cow, wondering if he’d be to blame for an impending loss. Dhruv Jurel wanting that same turf to swallow him as Siraj and Shubman Gill berated him for missing the stumps with an underarm that would have sealed the match. His shot at immortality scuttled a yard past the striker’s stumps.
Atkinson crestfallen, one hit away from a tie that would have given England the series win, doubled over, smelling the earth where his off stump used to be. A lionhearted Chriis Woakes, dislocated left shoulder strapped to his torso, secured by a sleeveless jumper, arm guard on his “wrong” side with a view to batting southpaw.
Even umpire Ahsan Raza, assuming the role of good Samaritan, helping the infirm Woakes readjust himself after sprinting the bye Jurel failed to prevent, a moment that left his left arm loose despite all the binding.
And hey, let’s hear it for the Dukes ball. Pilloried for the last seven weeks but thriving in its final 85.1 overs of the English Test summer.
Was 2-2 a fair result? On balance, yes. But England’s failure to punch their card for a hat-trick of 370-plus chases against India should be regarded as a misstep from 301 for 3 and 332 for 4.
That only enhances India’s feat in squaring the series, even if they will depart a long tour with issues of their own. Selection decisions remain inconsistent, and their batting needs to take cues from their bowling when it comes to getting a grip of sessions that are turning against them.
With the best will in the world, who cares about any of that right now? As both sets of players reflected on how such a hard-fought series could reach such a climax, they would do well to appreciate how lucky they were, too.
Test cricket has been going on for almost 150 years, and we were still treated to a one-of-a-kind finish. And perhaps more importantly, at a time when other Test-playing nations are unwelcome and unable to participate in series that allow such fairytales, both sides should count themselves lucky. Lucky to play regularly in a format that can lift you to higher plains. Lucky to afford to do it.
As it happens, Monday was the 20-year anniversary of the start of the 2005 Edabaston Test between England and Australia. A Test that, ultimately, defines an Ashes series regarded as the greatest ever.
That two-run victory was England’s slimmest margin. Here in 2025, India bagged theirs, by six. Maybe the universe is up to something.
Many have wondered throughout these five Tests if the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy could rival 2005’s offerings. In these 56 minutes, it did.
[Cricinfo]
The International Olympic Committee says it will announce eligibility criteria for transgender athletes early next year, after months of deliberation as it seeks to find a consensus on how to protect the female category.
The issue has been a source of controversy, with no universal rule in place for the participation of transgender athletes at the Olympic Games.
The IOC, under its new President Kirsty Coventry, did a U-turn in June, deciding to take the lead in setting eligibility criteria for Olympic participation, having previously handed responsibility to the individual sports federations, leading to a confusing patchwork of different approaches.
In September, Coventry set up the “Protection of the Female Category” working group, made up of experts as well as representatives of international federations, to look into how best to protect the female category in sports.
“We will find ways to find a consensus that has all aspects covered,” Coventry told a press conference on Wednesday following an IOC executive board meeting. “Maybe it is not the easiest thing to do, but we will try our best, so when we talk about the female category, we are protecting the female category.”
Coventry said a decision would come in the first months of 2026.
“We want to make sure we have spoken to all stakeholders, taken adequate time to cross the Ts and dot the Is,” she said.
“The group is working extremely well. I don’t want to try to constrain the working group by saying they need to have a specific deadline, but I am hopeful in the next couple of months and definitely within the first quarter of next year we will have a clear decision and way forward, which I think we are all looking forward to,” said Coventry, a former Olympic swimming champion.
Before Coventry’s decision in June, the IOC had long refused to apply any universal rule on transgender participation for the Games, instructing international federations in 2021 to come up with their own guidelines. Under current rules, still in force, transgender athletes are eligible to take part in the Olympics.
Only a handful of openly transgender athletes have taken part in the Games. New Zealand’s Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender athlete to compete in a different gender category to that assigned at birth when the weightlifter took part in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Currently, some international federations have rules in place, but others have not yet reached that stage.
US President Donald Trump has banned transgender athletes from competing in sports in schools in the United States, which civil society groups say infringes on the rights of trans people, as Los Angeles prepares to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Trump, who signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order in February, has said he would not allow transgender athletes to compete at the LA Games.
[Aljazeera]
Sri Lanka Cricket Selection Committee has named a 15-member squad to participate in the upcoming ACC Men’s U19 Asia Cup (50 Over).
The team will depart for the United Arab Emirates today [0 December 2025] and has been placed in Group B, alongside Nepal, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
China’s world champion long jumper Wang Jianan has been cleared of doping after a review of hospital CCTV footage.
Wang, 29, became the first Asian man to win world long jump gold with his 8.36m leap in Oregon in 2022.
He failed an out-of-competition doping test in November 2024, which showed traces of terbutaline – a drug primarily used to treat and prevent breathing problems in patients with asthma.
The China Anti-Doping Agency (Chinada) said the presence of the drug had been caused by passive inhalation while Wang was accompanying a relative to hospital for nebuliser treatment.
Chinada decided Wang bore no fault or negligence for the violation and would not be banned.
The decision was reviewed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which used hospital security footage and patient records to investigate Wang’s movements before his drug test.
The AIU’s investigation sought opinion from an independent scientific expert, who concluded “a passive transfer of the substance to the athlete could not be excluded”.
The AIU also said there was “nothing suspicious” about the documents and CCTV files shared by Chinada.
[BBC]
No change in death toll, stands at 639 as at 0600AM today [11th]
Trump administration says it seized oil tanker off Venezuela coast
Olympics decision on gender eligibility to come in early 2026
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