Joe Root scores fine century against India but needs support from other England batsmen

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England captain Root has scored four hundred tests in 2021; the batsman has made nearly 30 per cent of England’s runs this calendar year and now needs others to do so; Watch the second test, of Lord’s live on Sky Sports The Hundred from 10am on Thursday

“He has put his heart and soul into this game,” roared Michael Atherton, commenting as Joe Root completed a hundred quite magnificent players on the fourth day of the first Test against India at Trent Bridge.

Athers was not wrong, you could see the delight etched on Root’s face, but it was his careers that England was incredibly grateful for.

Without them, the home team would have been a toast at this Test. As it stood, their efforts, plus a failure on the fifth day, saw the game tied and the series locked at 0-0 with four games to play.

Of England’s 486 runs in the match, Root managed 173 of them, with his 64 being the most notable when his team was shot by 183 on the first day and his 109 out of 172 balls, the main reason why they reached 303. On the fourth day.

What is England’s next highest individual score in the match? Sam Curran 32 second inning. Root, who now has more than 1,000 test runs in 2021, holds the batting lineup together. The shine between fragility.

More important than the weight of the races, though, is when you get them and Root got his on Saturday when England really needed them.

The captain approached the wicket with his side 46-2, 49 runs late and India feeling a win on day four but, under intense pressure and without England’s talisman Ben Stokes as backup, Root delivered.

His four from Mohammed Siraj from the third ball he faced were a sign of things to come in a graceful and vital tackle, with coruscant drives, confident final cuts and composed clips through midwicket.

Root’s tempo was also evident: His hit rate was an excellent 63.37, significantly higher than the slow 21.05 recorded by Dom Sibley, who either sunk or bogged down depending on his point of view.

Root never missed an opportunity to score and re-press India’s high-quality bowling attack.

“I felt like my feet were walking very good very fast,” said Root. Sky Sports’ Ian Ward on Sunday morning.

“I had a very proactive mindset from the beginning of the game, knowing it was going to be a challenge, the balls there could have your name on them.

“It’s really important for bowlers to get away from your length without taking too much risk, which will ultimately make it difficult for them to launch into you.

“I tried to use the balls in the channel [outside off stump] To note. I felt in good rhythm, somewhere near my prime. “

As Athers remarked when Root hit three figures, it was “one of his best hundreds,” save for a few nervous spells before he reached both his fifties and his century.

At 97, Root’s eyes lit up as Shardul Thakur gifted him a wide ball and hit it just before Siraj took cover. The next ball hit the same fielder, the ball then failed to connect with a cut throw.

But a delivery after that, he placed Thakur on the ground to seal a hundred of 154 balls. The celebration showed exactly what it meant to him as he scored a century in a home test for the first time since hitting 125 against India at the 2018 Kia Oval in Sir Alastair Cook’s farewell match.

Root joked about his fifty-to-100 conversion rate while speaking with Ward and while that may have been a problem in recent years, it hasn’t been in 2021. He now has up to four tons of proof for the calendar year having reached two in Sri Lanka and one in India during winter.

Had he dived below the apex group of Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson and surely now Babar Azam, he’s definitely back at it.

It really is above England, which in itself is a problem. You are being asked to do too much.

While Root is at the top in terms of test runs scored in 2021, the next England entrant on that list is Dan Lawrence (354 runs) at 18th place. Out of all the England tests this year, Root has obtained almost 30 percent of them.

The middle order should be boosted at some point by Ollie Pope, who is on his way back from injury, and hopefully Stokes as well, with the latter currently taking time out of the game to prioritize his mental well-being and to rest his left index finger.

So the main issues, as always, seem to be in the top three, which currently consist of Sibley, Rory Burns, and Zak Crawley.

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