The last Test, then, and the inevitable sense that we’re getting to the end. There aren’t too many pages left to turn in this story. It’s always like this at the Oval, of course; it’s where series finish and another summer of Test cricket ends. This year it’s two months earlier than usual, so the schedule is out of kilter with the seasons. But the weather was autumnal, and so was the cricket. It was a cold, cloudy and floodlit day’s play between two tired teams, all loose shots and sloppy drops, jaffas and long hops, as if everyone was getting by on whatever dregs of adrenaline they had left after playing all these Tests in the past few weeks.
As always, there are questions in the air about whether the Test summer is going to take one or two of the players’ careers on its way with it. These are two old teams – 15 of the 22 players are over 30 – and as long as they go on these days, it seems likely that a lot of them will have quit Test cricket by the time Australia play here again in 2027. Moeen Ali, called out of retirement for this one last job, is almost certainly done. Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad both seem to want to go on a little longer yet, but it does feel like a decision they’re going to have to make all over again every time they wake up in the morning.
