England captain feels he and his teammates could have created nine chances on the fifth and final day of the first Test against India.
Rain played spoilsport as day five of the first Test match was washed out. India needed 157 runs with nine wickets in hand heading into the final day. However, India don’t have a great history of chasing down targets in the fourth innings of a Test match in the recent past, especially overseas.
Barring the tour to Australia earlier this year, where they drew the SCG Test and won at the Gabba (chasing 328), India have fallen short on quite a few occasions. In 2018, India couldn’t chase 208 against South Africa in Cape Town, 194 and 245 against England at Edgbaston and Southampton, respectively and 287 against Australia in Perth.
“At one stage it looked like we could have potentially had 40 overs and I think in that period, it felt like we would have been able to create nine chances on the surface like that.
I’d be lying if I wasn’t to say that India weren’t in the driving seat going into today, but we know on a wicket like that, a couple of wickets in a cluster and of course that game can turn on its head.
With the pressures of batting on a fifth-day wicket, things could very quickly have fallen in our favour and we certainly believed that we’d have been able to create nine more chances,”
Root was quoted saying in the post-match press conference.
The second Test starts on the 12th of August (Thursday) at Lord’s. Both teams received four World Test Championship points each after the first Test ended in a draw.
