Many types of scenes are often seen in a cricket match, but it is rare when a fast bowler suddenly becomes a spinner and starts slow bowling in the middle of the match. There have definitely been some part-time bowlers who have been bowling slow-medium and sometimes spin, but it is rarely seen that a major fast bowler suddenly starts spin bowling in the middle of an over. England fast bowler Ollie Robinson had to do this once when he was being beaten badly. This time also an England pacer had to do this but the reason for it was not a rain of runs nor any kind of injury, but this step had to be taken due to a different reason and the bowler who did this was Chris Woakes.

The third and final match of the Test series between Sri Lanka and England is being played at the Oval Stadium in London. On the second day of the match, the Sri Lankan team came out to bat in their first innings. Now the weather has been affecting this match since the beginning and the first day's play could not even be completed. Something similar happened on the second day and England's famous clouds covered the London ground. During this, barely half an hour had passed since the second session of play started.

Now when the clouds started gathering, the umpires had to intervene. During this, Chris Woakes was bowling and had bowled 2 balls of his over, in which Sri Lankan batsman Dimuth Karunaratne was run out on the second ball.

Woakes suddenly became a spinner

Now, as often happens in Test matches, when the light dims, the umpires either order all the players to return to the pavilion or give clear instructions to the fielding team that to continue the game, they will have to bowl only spinners because the batsman may have trouble seeing the ball against fast bowling.

The umpires put this option in front of England captain Ollie Pope and he agreed to it. Now, although England had spinners like Shoaib Bashir and Joe Root on the field, Pope asked his pacer Woakes to finish the over. Woakes also agreed to this and started bowling off-breaks. He bowled 4 consecutive off-break balls, which yielded 5 runs including a four.

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING!

Bad light means Chris Woakes is bowling spin pic.twitter.com/TPYSnwXiEN

— England Cricket (@englandcricket) September 7, 2024

Fellow players started laughing, Stokes held his head

Seeing this scene, all the players present on the field started laughing, while England's regular captain Ben Stokes, sitting in the dressing room, held his head. He could not believe it. The spectators sitting in the Oval Stadium enjoyed this scene a lot.

By the way, the relief for England was that as soon as Woakes' over ended, the light improved and fast bowling started again. Woakes also got the benefit of this and he also got the wicket of Kusal Mendis after two overs, while in a while Gus Atkinson sent Angelo Mathews back to the pavilion.