England’s innings was led by Joe Root on a day where the hitters were put to the test constantly. By the conclusion of the first day at Lord’s, Root, who had amassed 3000 Test runs against India, had adopted the traditional strategy of grinding it out and amassed 99*.
In the third Test, Egland’s choice to bat first turned out to be a difficult one. Although England had not often chosen to bat at home in recent years, they had indicated that they intended to alter their strategy from the first two Test matches of the series on a green top that had been somewhat trimmed on the first morning.
However, the circumstances were far from perfect for the quick-scoring template that has become associated with them; rather, it involved a great deal of waiting and punching while taking several hits in the process.
Ollie Pope accompanied Root for a significant portion of his innings as they battled their way through a partnership worth 109 in 211 balls, which helped England bounce back from losing a few early wickets. Early in the day, India’s offence performed admirably in applying pressure to the hosts.
The openers were put to the test in a number of ways as the pace attack was strengthened by the return of Jasprit Bumrah, who replaced Prasidh Kirshna. Both Bumrah and his new ball partner Akash Deep had some movement available. However, there was also some uneven bounce that occasionally saved them. Throughout the first hour, real edges failed to reach the wicketkeeper or the slip cordon. As a result of the ball deviating sufficiently off the surface, there were also more plays and misses.
For the first 15 overs of any Test innings in England, the false shot percentage was 38.4%, the highest since 2006. As a result, England’s scoring speed slowed, and boundaries did not occur as regularly as they had during the Bazball period. Nitish Reddy was at the other extreme of that scale, while Akash and Bumrah were both unfortunate to have no wickets to their names.
Ben Duckett gloved a pull down the legside in his opening over. A few balls later, he got Zak Crawley nicking behind with a peach-sized away-seamer. If Shubman Gill had seized a difficult low opportunity at Gully in between, Reddy might have had another.
But Pope weathered that tempest with a fighting partnership, riding his luck with a busy Root.
They went through a period where no runs were scored for more than four overs in a row, and scoring had slowed to a snail’s pace. During a complete season, the run-rate of 2.91 was also the second-lowest for England at home during the Bazball era.
With the stroke of Tea, Pope also approached the milestone, but Root went on to record his 103rd score of fifty or above. However, Pope was caught behind trying to dab off Ravindra Jadeja right after the break. After Rishabh Pant hurt his finger in the second session, stand-in ‘keeper Dhruv Jurel took over and ended a resolute stand with a quick catch behind the stumps.
With a crisp incoming delivery from Bumrah, India made great progress in eliminating Harry Brook. England was once again in trouble at 172/4. As he had done all day waiting, Root, now accompanied by Ben Stokes, continued to slug it out and found another willing partner in his captain.
Stokes was also put under criticism for his subpar batting performances in the run-up to the Test following a few spectacular early strokes. Although their fifty-run partnership required 100 balls, it also made sure that India was kept at bay.
Root was forced to wait for the milestone after racing through the nineties and reaching one short of a tonne in the day’s last over.
India
