After winning the first Test by a mammoth 227 runs on Tuesday, England skipper Joe Root defended team’s approach in their second innings. He said that the visitors wanted to take India’s win out of the equation.
England, after winning the toss, registered a first-innings total of 578, on the back of Root’s 218. The visitors bowled out India for 337, taking a 241-run lead. However, in the second innings, England were bowled out for 178.
“It was a crucial toss but from that point, we had to follow through and make the most of a very good wicket. We did that very well,” Joe Root said at the post-match press conference.
Defending a total of 420 runs, Jack Leach’s four-for and James Anderson’s three wickets helped England bundle out India for 192 and take a 1-0 lead in the four-match series.
“We know that India are going to come back hard at us. The idea was to get to 400. It didn’t quite materialise like that. But having spent some time out there, I knew the wicket had changed drastically and knew it was going to change again,” Root added.
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“We wanted to take India’s win out of the equation. As a bowling group we didn’t want to worry about the run rate,” he further added.
With 442 points from 18 Tests, England swapped places with India to go top of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship (WTC) points table. New Zealand, who have already qualified for the WTC final, are currently in the second spot while Australia are at the third spot, followed by India in the fourth spot.
England, Australia, and India are all in contention for the other spot. India now needs to win at least two of the remaining three Tests to make it to the final.