Captains in pink as new boys fail
Root and Cook make England tick...again!
ENGLAND captain Joe Root produced a recordbreaking innings to help put England in control on the opening day of this first day-night Test against West Indies.
Root’s sublime century, the 13th of his Test career, was the 11th consecutive Test match in which he has scored a least 50, surpassing John Edrich’s England record of 10 consecutive matches established between 1969-71.
The Yorkshireman is now just one behind South African AB de Villiers’ world record of 12. But when he’s in this kind of form who would back against him equalling that on his home ground of Headingley next week?
Root’s third-wicket partnership with Alastair Cook stood at 176 by tea with his predecessor as captain on 85 after failures from debutant Mark Stoneman and No.3 Tom Westley reduced the hosts to 39-2.
By tea, England were in a strong position on 215-2 ahead of the final session under lights.
It was Root’s innings, though, that stole the show in the first two sessions. The 26-year-old’s run of 50-plus scores stretches back to England’s second Test against Bangladesh at Dhaka in October of last year, when he scored 56 in his side’s first innings during a chastening 108-run defeat.
Root then posted scores of 124, 53, 78, 77 and 88 in India, a series England lost 4-0, before further innings of 190, 78, 50 and 53 in the recent four-match series against South Africa saw him equal Edrich’s England record.
In breaking that mark, which has stood for 46 years, Root became only the sixth batsman to achieve the feat of fifties in 11 consecutive matches alongside West Indies great Sir Vivian Richards, India’s Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, Bangladesh’s Mominul Haque, all on 11, and then De Villiers.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan said: “It’s felt like the senior pair of Cook and Root have had a middle practice. They’ve been under no pressure.”