Root played great innings today. And Joe Root’s scintillating innings gave England a 26-run lead, scoring 180 in his innings and helping England take a pretty crucial 27-run lead. He scored his fourth Test century at Lord’s and, as on the previous three occasions, he converted in scores of over 50. On the last ball of the day, Shami dismissed James Anderson and England’s innings came to an end. Joe Root remained unbeaten at the other end.
Both the batsmen left no stone unturned to take advantage of these conditions.
The way Bairstow and Root left their innings on Friday evening, they started in the same fashion on Saturday. Whereas today’s weather was clear and conditions were favorable for batting. Both these batsmen left no stone unturned to take advantage of these conditions and scored runs at a good run rate. In the first two seasons, England’s run rate was close to 3.5 runs per over.
Due to the fast batting with the run rate, Virat Kohli had to adopt defensive politics. He also posted a fielder at first square leg and sweeper cover boundary line and bowled Ravindra Jadeja to control the runs.
Joe Root carefully selected his scoring shots which included flicks, cuts, and drives. He changed his gear after the fall of the ninth wicket and also applied a reverse ramp and slog-sweep against Siraj.
Joe Root first added 121 runs with Bairstow and then added 54 runs with Butler. He also made a half-century partnership with Moeen. Overall, Joe Root was also a part of all-important England partnerships.
Joe Root tackled those balls well
Despite not taking a single wicket in the first session, India adopted a different strategy in the second session. With the old ball, Siraj Bairstow and Joe Root were constantly bowling bouncers. Joe Root handled those deliveries well and fine innings later helped England take a 26-run lead but Bairstow got stuck in the net and gave a simple catch to Virat Kohli at slips.
Before the second and new ball, England was 135 runs behind India’s score. With the new ball, India also had a chance to wrap up the team quickly. But that didn’t happen as the Indian bowlers faced challenging troubles along with their indiscipline and the England batsmen did no wrong.
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After some time, Ishant, showing his experience, took three wickets in his name. First and foremost, he takes Butler to a brilliant in-swing ball. In the 91st over of the innings, Butler went for a cover drive and got bowled. Later coming back on the sixth spell, Ishant first got Moeen caught at slips. The batsmen changed in the form of Sam Curran on the very next ball while the result of the ball remained the same. He got stuck in the slips without opening the account.
Indian bowlers conceded 33 extra runs which included 17 no balls.
When both those batsmen got out, England was 23 runs behind India. However, even after this, the tail batsman made India wait a little longer and batted for more than half an hour, and also supported his captain.
While Joe Root’s scintillating innings helped England take a 26-run lead, another important aspect of this innings was that the Indian bowlers conceded 33 extra runs, including 17 no-balls. However, Anderson was dismissed on the last ball of the day and England got a chance to help them lead by 27 runs.
