My experience of the players’ biosecure environment made me appreciate how hard it is for Joe Root’s team England’s performance in the first Test was up there with one of their greatest wins overseas. To dominate India in their own backyard, a team who had lost just one of their last 35 home Tests prior to this one, is something special. The senior players in Joe Root and James Anderson led from the front, delivering near-perfect performances. Winning the toss and putting first-innings runs on the board was vital, something England have struggled with in the past, but they have now found stability in the top order and there was another dogged performance from Dom Sibley, who answered questions about...
Coverage on Channel 4 can help put the game back into the national conversation at a time when Test matches have rarely been more excitingFrom this distance, it looks like Joe Root is holding himself a little differently these days. You can see it in his press conferences, where his answers seem as self-assured as his footwork at the crease. Watch him at work after England wrapped up the first Test match, politely brushing aside insistent questions about whether he should have declared on the fourth evening and briskly dismissing everyone else’s enthusiasm about what he and his team had just achieved. “We can’t be happy with what we’ve done,” he said.Root is sure of himself, where he used to...
England No 3’s hour-long 18 in Chennai must have been about the hardest little stretch of batting he has had to doIt was a hot, humid afternoon in Chennai, the grandstands at Chepauk were empty, but the atmosphere in the middle looked close and claustrophobic. England were 241 runs ahead, but you would never have guessed it from the way the Indian fielders were buzzing. Ravi Ashwin had just had Rory Burns caught at slip off the very first ball of the innings, a devilish delivery that drifted in towards his pads, bit, broke back, flicked off the shoulder of his bat, and triggered a first little flush of panic. The wicket begged the question of how many England could...
Pant came to the crease with India in a hole but saw no reason to change his style, and instead briefly bent the game to his willAt the start of the 30th over of India’s first innings Jofra Archer went round the wicket to Rishabh Pant, mixing things up for his first go at India’s left-handed wicketkeeper-batsman. But he got his line wrong, sending his first delivery across the 23-year-old – who got the slightest of contacts to send it down the leg-side for four – and then overcorrecting, sending his next wide and straight, and Pant stretched to club that one away for four more. A spell was broken, and suddenly runs gushed off the bat like steam from...
The story of England’s first two days in Chennai is the story of one man, and how the score, the bowler, the day, and possibly even the year, faded into irrelevanceIt’s 2016. Joe Root is batting against Pakistan at Lord’s. The score is 114 for one. The runs are flowing. Everything works. Yasir Shah strays on to his pads and Root lap‑sweeps for four. The crowd purrs appreciatively. For Root, at this moment, Test cricket feels like the easiest game in the world. The next ball is tossed up invitingly outside off stump. “That’s 50,” Root thinks to himself, a split second before launching into a slog-sweep that flies off the top edge and is caught at midwicket.It’s 2021. Root...