Every cricket fan’s secret pastime? Imagining what could’ve happened if the pitch played just a little differently. “If only the wicket had some juice,” we sigh, or “If only it had still remained a pancake on day four.” Because let’s be honest, sometimes the pitch behaves like it’s on vacation, and sometimes it’s more like a rogue pinball machine.

What if we took today and replayed it twice over—in two faraway universes with two wildly different wickets? One where the pitch stayed a flat, easy-scoring track—the classic Bazball battleground that shows no mercy to bowlers. The other, where the surface seemed borrowed from the Lord’s test — where even thinking of scoring runs was a taboo for batters.

I woke up at 6 a.m., half-worried it might be for nothing, and England might get bundled out on a spicy fourth day track—but Root and Brook had other plans, taking full toll of a pitch that did not want to be woken up. It felt like every Brook-and-Root partnership we’ve ever seen—Brook bullying the bowlers on a flatbed, launching slog-scoops over extra cover in a style that Miandad may have pioneered but Brook has now claimed as his own. At the other end, Root was already halfway down the pitch for a single before the bowler had even turned at the top of his mark, rotating strike with that quiet genius he’s made routine. For most of their stand, Brook was striking at over a hundred while Root hovered around fifty—modern flair and stylish class, side by side, in perfect sync.

India threw everything at them. Every little trick that had worked on Brook earlier in the series was dusted off and redeployed. The leg-side-heavy field, the short-ball barrage from Prasidh Krishna—they’d earned a breakthrough with it at Headingley. But here at The Oval, Prasidh’s legs were heavy, and the pitch offered him no favours. The bouncers sat up politely, begging to be hit. Then came another change-up: Jurel was brought up to the stumps for a couple of overs from Akash Deep, an attempt to cut off Brook’s charge and disrupt his rhythm. But it only backfired. Akash couldn’t settle with the plan—he had to keep it at the stumps, but he just couldn’t. As soon he got straight, Brook just kept tucking him through mid-wicket. Every idea had an answer. Every ploy found punishment.

Even boring Brook out got shot as a plan—the old ploy of drying him up by bowling wide outside off, dragging him into a false shot through sheer monotony. It had worked before: against Sri Lanka, and again at Edgbaston earlier in the series. But here, it looked toothless. The boundaries never stopped, and Brook never looked bothered. As for regaining control with spin—don’t even bother.

At the other end, Root was the masterful surgeon as always—punctuating the innings with his trademark punch to backward point for the easy single. But the Bazball butcher was there too, sweetly dispatching anything wide past cover. Jadeja was sent sailing over his head as soon as he was brought on, as if to signal that spinners had no business bowling on this wicket. The reverse sweeps made a timely appearance as well. Pain kept growing from both ends.

India’s only hope seemed to lie in waiting for the dreaded hundreditis to catch up with Brook—the uncanny knack batsmen have for finding ways to dismiss themselves after reaching their hundred. But a minor slip-up wouldn’t be enough to get Brook out today. No, the hundreditis had to look ridiculously stupid. And stupid it looked— his bat flew clean from his hands, starting a slow solo walk back to the pavilion, while the ball leisurely made its way in the exact opposite direction, into Siraj’s waiting hands.

Elsewhere, the game was a war of attrition. In this other world, I couldn’t watch a bit of the game in the middle, and was nervously checking scores, hoping Bazball hadn’t triggered yet another collapse on a fiery wicket. Somehow, it just felt like torture to even go to the centre holding a bat. The Indian bowlers could do absolutely nothing wrong. Even Root—past his hundred now—was still forced into awkward, uncertain movements. Every single felt like an accident. Runs came not through precision, but through fielder missteps, inside edges trickling into vacant real estate, or the occasional cheeky leg-bye. It was cricket’s version of a siege—and not even the second-highest run-scorer in Test history, batting on a hundred, looked comfortable under fire.

Siraj in rhythm is a sight to watch. He comes from the Stuart Broad bloodline—capable of looking worse than my dibbly-dobblers on an off day, but not content with five-fors when he’s on. No, they prefer 8 for 15s in a single spell. And it felt like Siraj was feeling it. Somehow, after 72 overs of English drubbing, the ball—soft, worn, almost resigned—found a second life. But it didn’t just come alive; it came alive like a teenage zombie told to sit quietly in a corner. It misbehaved every other delivery, and suddenly, there was an appeal nearly every ball.

69.2 to Root—ball lobs off the front knee roll.
69.6 to Bethell—beaten on the cut.
71.1 to Root—jags back in, beats the flick.
71.5—another lbw shout.
And on, and on.

It felt like just one wicket—somehow, anyhow—and the weary legs that had trudged through all 669 of England’s runs at Old Trafford and three other Tests this series would spring back to life, ready to run through England’s lower order before they even knew what hit them.

The wicket did come—but at the other end. All the pressure, all the relentless misery piled on by the Indian bowlers, finally broke Bethell. The once free-flowing stroke-maker, who had once been sent in at No. 3 with vague instructions to just “hit anything that’s woodable” (mostly because England themselves had no clue what to do with that position), now found himself crawling to 5 off 30. At one point, getting beaten felt like a relief—his shots only looked worse. Watching him at the crease was painful. A batter stuck in existential dread. To be fair, the centurion at the other end had no idea what was coming either.

Eventually, Prasidh showed mercy and stopped toying with his prey. Bethell, desperate to break free, danced down the track and ended up chopping one onto his stumps—a tame end to a tortured stay. He didn’t need to appeal. He just sent the bails flying. And not long after, he found Root’s outside edge to bring the two Jamies—Smith and Overton—to the crease.

Jamie Smith came into the day averaging 72 in the series, but somehow the question wasn’t how many balls until he goes ballistic and takes England over the line. No—something had shifted. The real question now was: how many balls can he survive before getting dismissed? And if Smith couldn’t find the middle of the bat, Overton didn’t come close. Smith was stuck on 2 off 17; Overton couldn’t get off the mark after 8 deliveries. And all this—every bead of tension—while chasing just 35 runs. The sky had turned a brooding grey, the perfect curtain to dim the lights while the Indian bowlers made the English batters dance like puppets to a tune they couldn’t hear.

The only hope the English batters had to survive the siege was by praying to the cricket gods. Somehow, she obliged—opening up the skies and pushing the series into a final-day thriller.

Turns out, the two universes weren’t as far away as they’re supposed to be. Somehow, these two beauties were separated by just half an hour off the grid—just a quick ride on the subway. It’s almost ridiculous how much cricket can morph in that sliver of time—for the pitch and ball to suddenly find a voice, for the tired legs of Indian bowlers to summon the strength for one final battle. In most systems, that kind of volatility would be classified as an absolute bug. And yet, somehow—in cricket—it’s a feature.