Another century, some more milestones and brawls in record books. Joe Root is having the best time of his career with the bat. The name of the England captain is engraved in one glory after another.
Mohammad Siraj was waiting for a hat-trick when Joe Root came to the crease on the second day of the Lord’s Test. Dom Sibley and Hasib Hamid were bowled out for 23 by England for two in a row. The next story is about the England captain.
Possible top order collapse when the route arrives. Ronnie Burns and Johnny Bairstow formed two very important pairs. England’s 23-run 2-wicket haul as well as the 22nd Test century of his career. Stopped after a century in the first Test. In all, Root has scored 5 centuries in 10 Tests this year. No other English captain has scored so many Test centuries in a single calendar year.
Graham Gooch (1990), Mike Atherton (1994) and Andrew Strauss (2009) shared the record with Root.
Root touched another milestone after the century. He scored 113 runs for 9,000 Test runs. Alastair Cook is the only England player to have achieved this feat before. Cook made 9,000 in 206 innings. Root took 198 innings.
However, in time, Root has set a world record beyond Cook. In just 7 years and 242 days from his debut, he became 9,000. Cook took 9 years and 69 days. Only these two have managed to score 9,000 runs in less than 10 years of their careers.
In a record, however, Cook before the route. Cook has made 9,000 as the youngest batsman in Test history. He achieved this feat at the age of 30 years and 159 days.
Root has now scored 11 Test centuries under England. And if he scores a century, he will touch another record of Cook.
The third day at Lord’s is generally called the norm for batting. Today, in the second over of the day, Siraj’s ball hit the point boundary, giving the same impression of route four. Runs also came from the Bearstore bat. The two spent the first session quite comfortably. Bairstow was threatening a big run by completing the first fifty after returning to the Test team.
India had to change their plans after the lunch break in the hope of wickets. India outscored Bairstow to get a trap on the leg side at Trentbridge. Virat Kohli also went back to that plan at Lord’s. It also works. Bairstow stepped into the trap before taking the new ball. Going to the pool with Siraj’s short ball, he made an easy catch to Virat Kohli who was on the slip. The Root-Bearstore 121-run partnership was broken.
The pace of the run did not stop at the Bearstore out. The partnership with Joss Butler has increased the run average. The duo added 54 runs for the fourth wicket partnership. Butler returned with 23 runs but Root is fighting at one end.