Joe Root : The ruthless side of the England ODI team came out yesterday

All the pressure was on Eoin Morgan & Co. as they entered the second ODI at Lord’s yesterday trailing the Indians by a score of 1-0. The hosts’ suffered in the first match due to the bowling prowess of the magical Kuldeep Yadav, who picked up 6 wickets and a brilliant ton from Rohit Sharma. But things were different in the second game as the home team were at their ruthless best and punished the Indians who were rather complacent and levelled the series at 1-1.

Struggling English batsman, Joe Root, was the star of the day for the three lions as he scored a well-deserved 113 from 116 balls to lead the hosts to a total of 322/7 after some late fireworks from tail-ender, especially David Willey. Root said it was important to play Yadav and get used to his tricky bowling technique ahead of the next month’s Test series.

“For me, having not faced a lot of Kuldeep for example, it was about picking as many cues up as possible throughout and makes sure I don’t get caught in the cold in Leeds, if I start against spin.

“I have only faced four balls against him in the last couple of games. But ultimately you have got to trust your game and your technique. I felt that the four balls I did face, I thought I was picking him okay. So it was more about spending some time out there and trusting the way I play spin. I haven’t faced much of his type of bowling but having a few overs under my belt gave me quite a lot of confidence,” Root said in a post-match conference.

The third and final ODI of the series is set to be played next Tuesday at Leeds and Root expressed hopes that the home country can finish the series on a positive note after they lost the T20I series a couple of weeks ago.

“The surface was going to deteriorate quite quickly and we had the better (chance) of batting on it. But later, the way we went about it with the ball was outstanding. The ruthless side of this (England) ODI team came out today and that was something you have seen more and more of. Hopefully, we can back it up and finish the series strong now,” the 26-year old added.