Former England skipper Joe Root has been struggling for runs in the ongoing five-match Test series against India and the manner of his dismissals hasn't helped his cause. Root, who returned scores of 29, 2, 5 and 16 in the first two Tests, got out reverse-scooping Jasprit Bumrah in the first innings of the third Test match in Rajkot to the second slip. Root has come under the scanner for playing wild shots despite the lean patch and against a bowler of quality of Bumrah, who has been on a roll in the ongoing series.
Former India and England players including the likes of RP Singh, Michael Vaughan and Ravi Shastri have blasted Root for his strokeplay and lack of awareness. Singh even went on to say that if someone in domestic cricket played that shot and got out, his career would have been over.
"The shot Joe Root played, if someone had played such a shot at domestic or club level, his career might have gotten over. He would have been asked to first correct things and come as you can't play like that," RP Singh said on Colors Cineplex.
"I am not able to think how the support staff would see that shot. I never thought such a compact player would play this shot and that too against Jasprit Bumrah. He might have thought two days ago that he would try something unique as Bumrah was anyway going to dismiss him," Singh added.
Singh said that Root had somewhat a Bumrah syndrome in his mind and that was his way of keeping the Indian strike bowler at bay, which didn't work. "There was a match being played in between this match. Jasprit Bumrah has been on top of him (Root) in this series and he has been dismissed in different fashions. It's not that he has been dismissed similarly. I would say it's more in Joe Root's mind that he needs to be careful against Jasprit Bumrah," the former Indian pacer further added.
Root's dismissal triggered a massive collapse for England as they went from 224/2 to 319 all-out before India smashed 430 runs and set a massive target of 557 runs for the visitors to chase in the fourth innings.
