India trapped in Root canal

Skipper Joe Root continued to torment the Indian spinners with a majestic double century that placed England in a commanding position and scuttled the home teamrsquos chances of enforcing a favourable result in the first Test here on SaturdayEngland ended Day Two at an intimidating 555 for eight built around Rootrsquos 218 that was a result of a near ninehour effort in which he faced 377 balls Root became the first cricketer to score a double hundred in his 100th Test but more importantly it was an innings that will be archived for future generations as a ready reference on how to play spin on Indian pitches The pace of his innings on the second day was a bit in contrast to how he played on the first day when he was the enforcer and Dom Sibley the grafterStokes on fireOn the second morning it was Ben Stokes who entered the stage and made it his own with bighitting He smashed 82 off 118 balls with 10 fours and three sixes and let Root rotate the strike in their 124run stand Stokes though was in awe of Rootrsquos batting style especially the way he countered the spinners ldquoHe makes us all feel pretty rubbish How easy he makes batting look I was quite surprised he ran down the wicket and hacked a six to bring up a double centuryrdquo Stokes said after the dayrsquos playBen StokesldquoHe is in phenomenal form and just making things look very very easy and the way that he plays spin well dominates spin itrsquos incredible to watchldquoI donrsquot think half England batsmen ever play spin in the way that he does Hersquos just got options he has got an answer for everything thatrsquos thrown out and yeah hersquos just a delight to watch him at the momentrdquoEngland didnrsquot declare after being well past 500 which was like driving home a point and piling on the misery on an Indian team which has now been shaken up on a track where nothing happened for two days While Root will be lauded for his second double hundred it was Stokes whose counterattack deflated the home team He started by coming down and lofting Ravichandran Ashwin over long for a six and then used the giant stride to slog sweep the senior offspinner for a boundaryIn fact Ashwin 2132 who was brilliant over two days was only a bit rattled when Stokes gave him the charge Although Root hit Ashwin for two sixesmdashthe second one bringing up his fifth career double hundred for the England captainmdashit was Stokes who gave him and the other spinners a big charge Also the only one who played Ishant Sharma with some degree of confidence was Stokes While Root defended well against the veteran pacer it was Stokes whose ondrive and square drive off successive deliveries from the pacer did change his skipper Virat Kohlirsquos facial complexion which remained grumpy for the most part of the dayIshant 252 bowled as best as he had in any unfavourable conditions something that the scoreboard wouldnrsquot perhaps tell The veteran of 98 Tests finally got a couple of wickets at the fag end of the day but his performance with the old ball on one of the flattest tracks will be remembered for a long time The pace never dropped even when he was well past bowling his 20th over as the tattered old ball would consistently tail inSundar strugglesBut Ishant Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrahrsquos 281 good work was undone once again by rookie Washington Sundar And Shahbaz Nadeem 2167 for all his experience at the domestic level for a decade and a half probably understood that he probably is a bit lessskilled when facing a team full of quality players of spin His wickets column would read that he had got Stokes and Root but it was well after they had accomplished what they had set out to do Root and Stokes showed how to stay low and try and take the ball below the eyelineThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever