Legendary Sunil Gavaskar believes Joe Root’s dismissal late on the fourth day of the fifth Test match against England at the Kennington Oval, London, was the turning point of the game. Root was dismissed after scoring a fine knock of 105 runs off 152 balls with the help of 12 fours.
The England veteran batter was looking to guide the ball towards third man but was caught by wicket-keeper Dhruv Jurel on the bowling of Prasidh Krishna. Root was a big wicket for India as he has all the experience in the world and would have got England over the line if he had stayed till the end.
Root’s dismissal gave a glimmer of hope to the visitors and Mohammed Siraj did the rest on the final day.
Sunil Gavaskar said on India Today when asked about the turning point of the match, “It has to be when Joe Root got out. Harry Brook had already got out at that stage. But the wicket of Root because Root really has been the batter who has held this team together. The sparkling strike players like Duckett, Crawley, Brook and Jamie Smith are there but the one who has really held this team together is Joe Root.”
“So when he fished outside the off-stump and was caught behind, that really was what the Indian team wanted. They then suddenly had two inexperienced players at either end and therefore you could put pressure on them, which is exactly what India did.”
Root and Harry Brook added a fine alliance of 195 runs to put England in a commanding position but India were able to bounce back.
Gavaskar highlighted that the overcast conditions helped India’s bowlers on the final day of the Test match.
“It got a little overcast and that helped the ball to swing a lot more. What we’ve seen is the new ball 10-15 overs old comes on to the bat nicely and then it starts to swing. Again from 30-40 overs, it becomes easier for the batters because the ball doesn’t do much. But the overcast conditions helped the ball to swing a little bit and that’s where the wickets came,” said Gavaskar (via the aforementioned source).
Mohammed Siraj was the star of the show as he returned with figures of 5-104.
