Heavy sits the crown of captaincy on Joe Root after ugly half-century | Barney Ronay

Root entered his own Bermuda triangle, once again, after passing 50 before getting out to a fearsome Pat Cummins ball

To receive one stump‑splaying, seam‑fizzing, late‑afternoon miracle ball from Pat Cummins might be considered a misfortune. To get two in five days starts to look like … well, what exactly?

Bad luck for Joe Root, certainly, whose misfortune it was to face the opening ball of Cummins’s 15th over on the first day of this Oval Test. It was Cummins who had brought Root to the crease half an hour into the day, luring Joe Denly into a doomed push-drive against the new ball.

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