At the end of another day of backchat and occasionally fraying tempers, in which the former England captain Michael Vaughan suggested of the two sets of players that “it’s almost like they’ve had enough of each other”, India admitted Joe Root had been the target of a deliberate plan to wind him up and put him off his game.
Alastair Cook, another former England captain, had suggested as much after Root reacted to a comment from Prasidh Krishna. “He was angry, he wasn’t in much control, but why wouldn’t you try to upset Joe Root?” Cook said. “I don’t know if it was a plan but you can say that it did work. I just hope what he said was within the line. I hope it didn’t cross the line, and was good old honest sledging. It definitely got Joe out of his bubble.”
Root, who across the first four matches of the series had scored two centuries and averaged 67.16, was duly dismissed for 29. “That was the plan,” Krishna said. “But I didn’t really expect the couple of words that I said to get such a big reaction from him. It was a very small thing. We’re good mates off the field – it was just a little bit of banter and both of us enjoyed it, I think.”
On another occasion Akash Deep put an arm around Ben Duckett’s shoulder to usher him off the field after the England opener was dismissed for a quickfire 43, something England’s assistant coach Marcus Trescothick thought might have provoked a more violent response.
“A lot of players would have just dropped the elbow on him,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bowler do that after getting someone out. I’m sure there’ll be occasions in the future where he may well [react]. It is what it is, isn’t it? There’s no need to walk him off in that fashion, but the game has been fought in good spirits – although there’s been many words and arguments along the way, the two teams are still getting on well enough and will continue to do so once the game is done.”
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India finished the second day on 75 for two, nursing a lead of 52 with 21 wickets having already fallen on a green-tinged pitch described by Trescothick as “extreme”. “This pitch has been challenging,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it, with the way it was prepared to be a little bit greener. I think it’s been at the top end of what you want it to be. We’re at the extreme version of what we see in these types of pitches, but it’s kind of what we like – we want pace on the ball, we want the ball to bounce and we want the ball to carry through. We’re happy with how it’s performed so far.”