India vs England: Joe Root to focus ‘ball-by-ball’ in landmark Chennai Test

Ahead of becoming England’s 15th player to reach 100 Tests, skipper urges a collective team performance, seeks inspiration from India’s heroics in Australia.

Taking on a full-strength India high on confidence after their win in Australia will rank among England’s most daunting tasks in recent times. With the Chennai Test marking a special moment for their talismanic batsman and captain, Joe Root, being his 100th Test, England though will not be short of inspiration.

England's Test Captain Joe Root (PTI)

What adds lustre to the opening act of the box-office series is that the 30-year-old Yorkshire batsman will be the main target of the home side. Given how much the Big Three cricket boards go up against each other now, the England captain has played a lot of cricket against India (16 Tests), and with a lot of success.

His average of 56.84 (1,412 runs, four hundreds) is his best against any team except Sri Lanka, and way higher than his career average of 49.40. Scores of 228 and 186 in the 2-0 win in Sri Lanka last month underline the mood he is in.

Root is charged up to lead his troops in tough conditions. “On the back of those two games (in Sri Lanka), we’ve got a huge amount of confidence. We are very realistic of where we are as a team, how we are playing our cricket, how we are slowly improving all the time. We know that this is going to be a huge challenge for us… We’re looking forward to it and just have to concentrate on keep making forward steps as a team, concentrate on what’s happening and try and execute that as best as possible. You want to play against the best teams in the world and try and do well in their conditions,” Root said in a media interaction on Thursday.

Since he made his debut in Nagpur on the 2012 tour with a promising 73, the middle-order batsman has been a thorn in India’s flesh. He dominated the 2014 Tests at home (518 runs, average 103.60), scoring two big hundreds and three half-centuries. In his first seven Tests against India, he scored three hundreds and four fifties. On his last tour, though England were routed, Root aggregated 491 runs. He has handled India’s spinners well, including R Ashwin. The off-spinner is oozing with confidence after a good show in Australia and will be on his home ground for the first two Tests.

“I will just try and play Ashwin (positively). I won’t go out there trying to dominate or defend. I will just try to play the ball that’s coming. If I do that well for a period of time, then I should be able to score some big runs. But he is a fine bowler, got a great record in India and is probably full of confidence on the back of the series. I’ve played against him before, scored some runs. He’s probably got the better of me a couple of times, and it’s going to be a great battle within the Test match. They are the contests you want to try and get the better of, but ultimately if you are going to score big runs in any series, you have to play all of the bowling well. Just having a ball-by-ball mentality will probably serve me best throughout.”

Root is exciting to watch against spinners as he puts pressure on them with attacking play. The 426 runs he amassed in Sri Lanka were scored at a strike rate of 65 plus. He is a master of the sweep shot, which is a handy weapon on sub-continent tracks. It’s a stroke he worked on as a teenager to compensate for a lack of power due to his frail build. “For me, it’s a lucrative shot, something that generates a lot of runs. The conditions and the way the pitches were in Sri Lanka, that was the lowest risk option for scoring runs.

“It might be that there is more bounce, might be there is not that much turn and it becomes a more dangerous shot out here. I have to find different ways of scoring runs. I suppose that is the art of batting. When you come up against one of the best sides, especially at their home like India, that is the challenge we are really looking forward to.”

With 8,249 runs and 19 centuries, Root is among the premier batsmen of this era along with Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson. Root versus Kohli will be a side-show again. When England played here in 2016, Kohli topped with 655 runs, averaging 109.

His form suggests Root will be up for the challenge. “Firstly, I look at those three guys and learn as much as I can. They are the three leading players of the world and it’ll be silly not to watch how they go about things, how they manage their own games as well and keep evolving and keep getting better all the time. Then try and add that to my own game. They all play very differently, have different styles. That’s the beauty of the sport—there’s no one right way of batting or bowling. Everyone can figure out for themselves.”

For Root though the series is not about personal glory.

“In terms of those individual battles, for me that’s not the most important thing; (it will be about) managing pressure for long periods of play.

“For me, it’s going to be about ‘can we collectively pull together, build those partnerships ball-by-ball and win?’”

India are on a high after winning in Australia against all odds. It is also something Root said England are taking confidence from. “A lot of sides will look at that series that happened in Australia and take huge amounts of confidence. Huge credit to India for going there and winning, but teams will see that, and we will see that it is possible to win away from home. There will be a lot of pressure on sides hosting.”