The shot of Root

England started the day full of their most precocious vibes, so much so that Joe Root played a shot that broke the internet. And it wasn’t the first shot, with Ben Duckett being dismissed by a ball that wouldn’t have removed a stale carp.

With Ashwin at home and Jadeja not bowling, England tried their Scott Boland trick to end the other bowlers. But Kuldeep bowled beautifully, and Mohammad Siraj came back strong. So again India crushed another tail, and England went from in front morally to behind realistically. When Jaiswal started hitting the ball so hard that his threw his back out, it was England’s only chance back.

Can they, yet again, coax a third-innings pickle out of another team?

Root’s shot (JK)

I think at a certain point you have to accept that the game has evolved and modern batters get out differently. It could also be a situation where he has a shot in his arsenal and he plays it at the wrong time - whether it's a cover drive or a reverse scoop. He scores 16 runs per over while playing the shot, so it is a case of risk-reward to overcome certain situations like defensive field settings.

This tweet from basedIITian was something worth talking, because there are people who seem to think Bazball is 'ruining' Joe Root's Test batting.

You could argue that if the whole team is making more runs, should he be averaging 53-54? But you can't really quibble over that when he basically averages half a run less now than he did in the 2 year peak period (where nobody else could score runs) before this. The fact that he could keep averaging 50 is still incredible. He has parts to his game that suit Bazball - strike rotation, changing the lengths of the bowlers.

But let's come back to the dismissal. Was this the right ball to reverse scoop?

Note how wide Bumrah is, and how close the ball is to Root. Bumrah falls over, you can see his body position. It is kind of where a left-arm seamer would release the ball from.

You can see from the bat face here that Joe Root is trying to hit the ball up in the air. But he just does not get under the ball.

The execution was bad, but he thought there was no one around third-man. He was not expecting to be caught at first or second slip. And it was a hard take from Jaiswal, who had to double clutch it. Slip fielders are not used to taking such random catches.

He is trying to launch the ball up and over.

But because of the angle it becomes tougher to hit as he can't get a full swing of the bat here. Bumrah was not the right bowler to hit this shot, the same way a batter should not cover drive Jamieson when he is bowling at length.

But if this was a cover drive, he would not have been criticized as much as compared to now. If he was a bit lucky and the ball flew away, nobody would be talking about it.

Root believes it is a shot he needs at times because he does not want to nick off in the cordon. Modern batters think differently.

Rohit Sharma took risks on Day 1, they came off and he scored a hundred to put India in a great position. Root's risk did not come off, and he left England in trouble when he was dismissed.