London: England's Joe Root celebrates after scoring 100 runs not out during the third day of the 2nd cricket test between England and India at Lord's cricket ground in London, Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021. AP/PTI
London, August 14 (PTI) England captain Joe Root was hardly perturbed during his undefeated knock of 132 but the Indian pace attack fared marginally better to make a few breakthroughs before the hosts reached 314 for 5 at tea on the third day of the second Test.
With India struggling to dislodge Root, who has so far faced 237 balls, England have a good chance of surpassing the visitors' first-innings score of 364, which will certainly give them a lot of psychological advantage going into the last two days.
As many as 97 and 98 runs were scored in first two sessions, signalling the plight of the Indian bowling attack, primarily due to Root, who has tweaked his stance with lesser trigger movement of back-foot.
Along with Root, Moeen Ali (20 batting off 31 balls) was at the crease after Mohammed Siraj (3/71 in 23 overs) and Ishant Sharma (1/60 in 20 overs) did well enough to remove the set Jonny Bairstow (57 off 107 balls) and Jos Buttler (23 off 42 balls).
However, Siraj was guilty of bowling too many short and wide balls on the day and a plethora of boundaries came quickly.
Root, a nemesis of Indian bowlers since his international debut, was once again at his best as he attacked them from the start of the third day and found an able ally in Bairstow, as they added 121 runs for the fourth wicket before Siraj hurried the later with a short ball.
Old warhorse Ishant, then, bowled a fuller delivery that nipped back in to breach Buttler's defence.
In between, Root ran a quick single to score his 22nd Test hundred and also became the first England captain to score five centuries in a season.
Save Jasprit Bumrah (0/62 in 20 overs), none of the Indian pacers looked like troubling the duo, who scored boundaries at will to release the pressure in the first hour itself.
Root started the first session with a square drive off Siraj to reach his third successive fifty plus score in the series.
Shami (1/87 in 21 overs) and Siraj during the first half an hour gave away at least six boundaries as skipper Virat Kohli had no clue about setting the field for the bad deliveries that the normally dependable Shami and the inexperienced Siraj bowled.
There were only two maiden overs in that first hour of play in which 54 runs were scored and suddenly India, who were leading the charge on the first two days, went onto the back-foot.
Bumrah bowled hard lengths with the old ball while Ishant, who was not played in the first Test, drifted too much on the pads, and Shami provided a lot of width for both Root and Bairstow to play their cuts and drives.
Ravindra Jadeja bowled 14 overs but there was not much help for him too.
