‘Bazball died today’ – Fans react as Joe Root scripts history by smashing record 10th ton against India, his 31st in Tests

Joe Root smashed a fantastic ton against India in the first innings of the 4th Test. The star batter returned to form after a long lean patch with the bat. Coming in at 47/2, he saw his team at 112/5 at one stage. From that point, Root was exceptional and batted very well. He returned to his conventional way of batting and got rewarded. 

England’s number four batted sensibly against the spinners and did not play any fancy shots. Akash Deep was breathing fire in the first spell. Root negated it well and went after the bowlers in the last two sessions. Ben Foakes assisted him well from the other end and batted well. The WK batter added 47 runs in the middle and played the 2nd fiddle well.  

It was Root who stole the show with his batting. The right-handed batter played traditional drives and cut the ball well. The middle-order batter was strong on the off-side and rotated the strike well. Against the spinners, Root looked composed and genuinely tried to spend some time in the middle to make something out of the wicket. It helped the England batter to score runs. 

Joe Root breaks several records with his latest knock

In his stay in the middle, Root scored 106 runs in 226 balls at the end of the first day which included nine fours. It was the 31st ton of Root in the longest format of the game. In the process, Root became the batter with the greatest number of runs against India in the longest format of the game. He also has the greatest number of hundreds against India in the longest format of the game. 

It was his 10th Test hundred against India and the first one in India since he hit a double hundred in Chennai in 2021. India could not hit the right lengths after Root got settled. The support at the other end from the likes of Ben Foakes and Ollie Robinson was crucial, which helped the former England skipper to register a fabulous hundred away from home.  

Here’s how the fans reacted to the knock of Joe Root –