England skipper Joe Root broke a poor string of low scores in the Test cricket with back-to-back fighting knocks against India in the Nottingham Test. He scored a fine fifty in the first innings before he jailed out his team with a sublime century in the second innings.
Root scored his 21st Test century during the fourth day of the first Test against India. His 109 runs helped England to score 303 runs in the second innings after getting out cheaply in the first essay.
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Talking about the change in his batting technique, Root said: “More than anything, up from New Zealand (Lord’s Test) I’ve changed a few things. I felt I got forward and back better. I was standing a lot taller a lot earlier, picking my bat up a lot earlier, I feel like I’ve got the rhythm back in my hands. I find 50-over cricket can be a massive help to my red-ball game.”
Root mentioned playing the One-Day International series against Sri Lanka helped him to regain form and confidence. England played three T20Is and as many ODIs against Sri Lanka, which eventually helped Root to regain his form, as said by him. He scored unbeaten 68 and 79 in that series.
“I’ve actually felt a real benefit from playing some white-ball cricket (in Sri Lanka). It would be nice to have some red-ball cricket coming into this game but, from my point of view, playing 50-over cricket gave me some rhythm back in my batting,” he added.
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Root started this year with a bang as he scored two double centuries in Test cricket. The first one came against Sri Lanka and he followed it up with 186 in the second Test. Later on, he scored a match-winning double hundred against India in Chennai Test.
“I was probably a little bit too excited. The five, 10 minutes leading into getting the hundred was a bit hairy as well, so there was probably a bit of relief,” he admitted.
“As always you’d want more runs to play with, there’s no doubt about that, but you’ve seen throughout this whole game there’s been times when clusters of wickets have fallen and the game’s really flipped on its head.”
India were needed to score 157 runs on day five to win the first Test but persistent rain washed out the entire day. The Test ended in a draw and prevented India from taking an early lead in the series. The second Test will be played in Lord’s from August 12.
