England players, including skipper Ben Stokes lost their cool, and their behaviour invited criticism as India pulled off a miraculous draw in the fourth Test of the 2025 Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground to ensure the series is alive going into the final Test.

After conceding a lead of 311 runs, the visitors were 0-0, making an England victory look like a formality. However, India batted out five sessions by losing just two wickets to ensure they avoided defeat as KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, and Washington Sundar put up a batting display for the ages.

With 15 overs left on the final day, Stokes walked towards Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar and asked for a draw. However, India's denial led to the English players reacting with nasty words towards the Indian stars. Jadeja and Sundar were both closing in on centuries and ensured they both got a well-deserved century.

Post the match, a viral video emerged showing that Stokes did not shake hands with Jadeja and Sundar post-match. The clip was widely circulated, leading to further criticism of the star all-rounders.

However, another clip has emerged that showed that Stokes walking towards Jadeja and Sundar to shake hands with them, immediately after the latter got his ton, and both teams agreed to draw the game.

Although the original clip, which went viral, did show that Jadeja and Sundar were expecting a handshake with Jadeja and Stokes.

Meanwhile, Stokes defended his decision and claimed that England had to stop bowling their front-line bowlers in order to preserve them from injuries with a victory out of sight.

"The knock that those two played was very, very good. 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," said Stokes.

"I think we took the game as far as we could with our frontline bowlers to take it as far as we could to think like we've got a real chance of still winning this game. But as soon as it got to that point where it was the draw's inevitable here, I was never going to risk any of my frontline bowlers with the short turnaround that we have and the workload that we've got through this week and throughout the series as well. So yeah, as soon as, you know, the 15 overs or last hour was there, it was always going to be a shake hands.

"As I said, the only other person who's actually got any bowling workload into them is Harry Brook. But I did have to tell him, 'Please don't do anything stupid.' We spent a lot of time out in the field, can't have you pulling aside or doing anything different. Naturally, you'll be fatigued, even if you don't bowl. So I was just like, just get through this period. But yeah, I wasn't going to risk any of my, you know, proper bowling options in that situation when we knew what was going on," Stokes added.