STATS HIGHLIGHTS
Follow UsThe England skipper just keeps on piling runs and records to his name. He has become an unstoppable run machine, it's just like Dinesh Karthik said on air “He has been the Root cause of India’s misery this year”. He notched up his third century of the series and has yet again broken several records en route to his century. That’s not it, there were a couple other records too that went unnoticed in the haystack of records Root set. Here are few of them from day two:
Openers lay the perfect platform
Before crediting Root, the openers Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed laid a firm base to play a free-flowing innings. Though the pair added only 15 runs to their overnight score, the 135 runs they scored was the second best for them against India in the last 25 years. Since 1996, only Sir Alastair Cook and Sir Andrew Strauss had a bigger partnership at home against India in 2011 in Birmingham (186).
A wicket for the spinner after 40 wickets
Ravichandran Ashwin dismissing Devon Conway in the World Test Championship-1 finals was the last Indian spinner bagging a wicket. Post that, Indian pacers had bagged all the 20 wickets in the first Test and 19 wickets in the second Test. In this Test, when Ravindra Jadeja bagged the wicket of Hameed after Mohammed Shami, Indian pacers had bagged 40 wickets between spinners wicket. This is the most wickets bagged by Indian pacers between a spinners wicket. Previously, in the 2018 tour of England the pacers had bagged 33 wickets.
All the top four scoring 50+
When it rains it pours and that is what happened in England’s batting today. A team top four that was in serious trouble went into a reshuffle and came out on top with flying colors. All the top four batsmen registered a 50+ score starting from Burns and lead by Root. Though this was the 24th time in England’s history, the last one was in 2013 against New Zealand in Dunedin, a long time coming. At home it was way back in 2005 against Bangladesh at Lord’s
Root’s record-breaking innings
It was not one or two or three, there were plenty of records that he broke in his innings of 121. Firstly, he went past Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s record of 822 runs that he had scored against India in a single year when he reached 69. He now has 875 runs, which is the second most against India in a calendar year and the third most against any opponent.
The second came when he reached 89 as he went past Cook’s tally of 1364 runs that he had set in 2015 as captain for England. He now has 1398 runs in the year, which is the most for an English captain and the fourth overall. Also, he has the most centuries in a year as England captain and joint most centuries as England skipper.
When he reached his century, Root levelled Kevin Petersen with 23 centuries and has the joint most centuries for England in Tests. It doesn’t end there, this was the sixth century of the year for Root, which is the joint most with Denis Compton in 1947 and Michael Vaughn in 2002.
This was also his eighth century against India in Tests, which is the joint most with Ricky Ponting, Sir Viv Richards, Sir Garry Sobers and Steve Smith. As a cherry on the cake, Root became the first captain to score a century in his 100th innings among the eight captains who have batted 100+ innings.
Root registers a first of a kind
The England skipper registered his third century of the series, making it three in consecutive Tests. Throughout this year, Root has had three consecutive tons in two separate streaks. At the start of this year against Sri Lanka, he had a double century in the first Test and followed it up by a 186 in the second Test. Then in the first Test of India tour he had scored another double, making it three on three. Now in this series, he has three in three. Hence, Root became the first to have two streaks of centuries in three or more consecutive matches.
