India rocked The Oval and the old order tilted

India won by just six runs. That single, slender margin — smaller than a thick edge past slip — now belongs to history.

At The Oval on Monday, in front of a roaring, near-hysterical crowd draped in the Tricolour and tension, Mohammed Siraj pulled India back from the brink. Gus Atkinson batted with the courage of a soldier under siege, refusing to fall without a fight. But the Indian bowlers wouldn’t yield. Every dot ball was met with a rising chant, every wicket with an earthquake of sound. South London hasn’t shaken like this in years.

And when it ended — when India had clinched the final Test and drawn the series 2–2 — The Oval was more than just a cricket ground. It was, once again, a theatre of national memory. A place where past and present briefly stood side by side, nodding in recognition.

Some cricket grounds are just venues. Others become turning points in a nation’s story. For Indian cricket, The Oval is not just where matches are played — it’s where something shifts. A crease in time. A moment when the old order tilts, however slightly, in India’s favour.

It happened before — in 1971, on a damp August afternoon, when Ajit Wadekar’s men — quiet radicals armed with guile, patience, and spin — beat England on their home turf to win India’s first-ever Test series on English soil. The symbolism was unmistakable. For a newly self-aware nation still defining its sporting identity, that win was more than cricket. It was arrival. It was defiance. It was art.

Fifty-four years later, the echoes returned.

Even the rhythm of the match felt familiar. England’s batting on day 4 raised old ghosts — of squandered leads and snatched defeats. By the final morning, England needed just 35 runs with four wickets in hand. Most thought it would be a formality. But cricket at

The Oval doesn’t deal in certainties.

Chris Woakes, battered but unflinching, came out to bat in a sling. Then came Siraj — searing, precise, relentless. One jagged ball clattered into Atkinson’s stumps, and the ground erupted.

The last pair edged, nudged, and deflected their way to within a single shot of glory. And then, silence — followed by Siraj’s final strike. The Oval exhaled. History, once again, belonged to India — not in dominance, but in defiance. And sometimes, that’s even sweeter.

This wasn’t just another overseas win. It was a coming-of-age moment for a new generation led by Shubman Gill, a captain still shaping his voice. Rohit Sharma has formally retired from the format. Virat Kohli stepped away earlier this year — not because he had to, but because he chose to. After 123 Tests, he handed the baton to younger hands. In their place stand not heirs, but inheritors — asked to perform and to embody something deeper: continuity, courage, and perhaps resistance.

The Oval, as ever, provided the perfect backdrop.

South London isn’t quite Mumbai, but during this Test, it certainly felt like it. On the first morning, as the Indian openers walked out, the applause didn’t come from pinstripe MCC members in the pavilion but from terraces filled with diaspora families — grandfathers in Nehru jackets, children in replica shirts, women draped in saffron and green, waving the Tricolour. Outside the Vauxhall gates, the smells of chai and samosas mingled with memories. Inside, chants in Hindi and English blurred into one: “Jeetega bhai jeetega” became “Come on, India!”

And those roars didn’t stop. Every spell, every near-miss, every tense moment on that final day fed the crowd’s hunger. They responded not like spectators, but like participants in a shared rite. Cricket, yes — but also something deeper: identity, belonging, pride.

For many, this wasn’t just a match. It was a pilgrimage.

They had come from Southall and Wembley, Leicester and Ilford. Some carried the memories of 1971. Others were here for the first time, determined to witness a new chapter. They came not only to watch cricket, but to belong — to remind themselves that history is not just read about, but lived through moments like these. And that even in exile, identity is not surrendered but shaped, over and over again.

This is what The Oval offers. A space not just for sport, but for self-definition.

It has always been a touchstone. In 2007, Rahul Dravid’s team won here, staking India’s claim as a rising Test power just before the IPL era rewrote cricket’s economy. In 2021, it was Rohit Sharma’s finest Test innings overseas that set up another famous win. And now, in 2025, Gill’s boys have added another layer to that story.

And the story matters — because Test cricket, increasingly endangered by short attention spans and television executives, needs places where memory and moment collide. It needs theatres, not just pitches. It needs pilgrimage sites. The Oval remains one of them.

It reminds us that cricket, at its best, is never just about the result. It is about where things happen. And why. And who is watching. It is about context.

And meaning.

India is no longer the polite underdog. It is a giant — economically, culturally, and increasingly, cricket-wise. But giants, too, need grounding. They need reflection.

And that is what The Oval provides: a space for India to look at itself, and for its fans to see the arc of a journey — from 1971 to now — not just in runs and wickets, but in meaning.

In the end, the scoreboard reads: India won by 6 runs. Series drawn 2–2. But the deeper truth is this: India reaffirmed itself.

And The Oval, once again, bore witness.

The writer is the London correspondent of The Tribune.