Root laments the lack of extra spinner in the team

12/11/2016

England batsman Joe Root has rued the lack of one extra spinner in their side as the Indian batters attacked them from the onset. Root also opened up about their misunderstanding of the wicket and said that the tactics of playing one extra pacer have backfired.

In the first three Tests, England played three spinners where there was genuine turn and bounce. But in the fourth Test, where the ball started turning viciously from the third day’s morning, England had to turn to Joe Root due to their lack of an extra spinner while Adil Rashid had to bowl a 28-over spell.

Lamenting the wrong decision of playing extra pacer in the match, Root said in the post-match press conference, "There wasn't as much movement as we had thought. Throughout the series, we have generally got quite a lot of reverse swing and you have seen that from both sides. But you look at the way the seamers operated for India, they didn't bowl as much they have done in the series as well. And that's the nature of this wicket and the surface. Obviously leading into the game we thought there might be a bit more in it for the seamers. It's not quite worked out that way so far.”

Joe Root, who picked two important wickets of Parthiv Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin to bring England back to the contest, said, “In hindsight, I think we would have liked to play an extra spinner. But it would be silly to think about things that are out of our hands now – we’ve just got to make the best of what we’ve got.”

However, India despite being reduced to 364/7 at one point of time ended the third day in a strong position of 451/7 with the Virat Kohli and Jayant Yadav dominating the English bowlers. “After that middle session, the way we got ourselves into a pretty good position, it was quite frustrating we couldn’t take the wickets at the back-end there,” said Root.

“It just proves that when you create those half-chances, you’ve got to make sure you take them.”

“It’d be silly now to look back at today and think ‘What a chance has slipped through our grasp’. The most important thing is we look forward, to tomorrow, and we take those three early wickets when we get those opportunities. Then, when it comes to batting, we look to put pressure back on them and be positive – just like we were in the first innings. If we can do that well, we’ve got a really good game on our hands,” he added.

Adil Rashid couldn’t hold on to a catch of Virat Kohli off his own bowling, and on being asked about the catch, Root came out to support his Yorkshire teammate.

"That was a very difficult catch. When it's coming at you at that pace, you are following through and it's on you before you know it. They either stick and on days they don't. You can't put blame on Rash for that. They are marginal half-chances at best," he said.

Root laments the lack of extra spinner in the team

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