Know what law suggests about India batters not shaking hands when Ben Stokes offered to call off ENG vs IND 4th Test in Manchester

It was just after the 138th over in the third innings of the fourth Test between England and India at Old Trafford in Manchester when the home captain, Ben Stokes, walked up to both the batters, Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar, to shake hands. But he was taken aback when none of them accepted their proposal. And that broke out the England side. 

Jadeja and Sundar had battled for two sessions and were on the brink of their respective centuries, which they wanted to celebrate. But Ben Stokes, having seen Ben Duckett getting hit on the arm by a flashing drive from Washington and seeing his pacer dead on their feet with the amount of overs they bowled in two days, was keen to call the game off, given that they will turn up again in three days against India at Kennington Oval. 

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The stump microphones found Stokes telling Jadeja if they wanted to score centuries against Harry Brook, who came to the attack in the very next over. Zak Crawley also asked both batters why they didn’t accept the proposal, but none of these England players seemed to know the rule.

Know what law suggests about India batters not shaking hands when Ben Stokes offered to call off ENG vs IND 4th Test in Manchester

No rule in the game says that if a captain wants to shake hands, the other has to put his hand in front to accept the draw. It’s, after all, a mutual agreement. The earliest any team can call for the draw is when the last hour starts. Stokes was right on that part, but he had nothing to do when Jadeja and Sundar refused to accept.

Jadeja, later, without much sweat, smashed Brook for a couple of sixes to celebrate his second century in England and remained unbeaten on 107 runs in 185 balls with 13 boundaries and one six. Sundar, meanwhile, celebrated his maiden red-ball century of 101 runs in 206 balls with nine boundaries and one six at 49.03.

Even if the Indian team wanted to, they could have put the opponents in the field till the last ball, had they not lost all of their 10 wickets. And that has been the general rule.