Root wants England to be relentless
PROTEAS LOOK TO DU PLESSIS TO SPARK TURNAROUND
ngland captain Joe Root is determined his side don’t let up when the second Test against South Africa starts at Nottingham’s Trent Bridge today.
Root’s first match since succeeding Alastair Cook as England skipper was a personal triumph, with the 26-year-old Yorkshireman scoring a firstinnings 190 in a 211-run win in the series opener at Lord’s last week as the hosts went 1-0 up with more than a day to spare.
England, however, lost eight Tests last year and Root is wary of letting complacency creep in.
“We definitely want to make sure we make this start count,” Root told reporters at Trent Bridge yesterday, with England looking to go an unassailable 2-0 up in this four-match series.
“It’s important we set the tone with whatever we do tomorrow morning and drive that forward throughout the rest of the game.”
Root confirmed England would field an unchanged team after off-spinner Moeen Ali, who took 10 wickets on a turning pitch at Lord’s, and slow leftarmer Liam Dawson helped ease the workload on his seamers.
“We’re going to go in with the same team,” Root said. “It gives us great balance if spin does come into it later in the game, we’ve got plenty of options.
“Our seamers, it might be that they play a bigger part this week, but that quite excites me. They only bowled a handful of overs in the second innings last week.”
Anderson trains lightly
One of those pacemen, James Anderson, did not bowl much during yesterday’s nets session, but Root insisted England’s alltime leading Test wicket-taker was fully fit after struggling with groin and shoulder problems recently.
“He had a little bowl today,” Root added. “Jimmy knows his body, he’s obviously had a couple of injury issues over the course of this year and I think he’s just been smart with the way that he practises. “He’s a senior player, he knows what he’s doing. He’s done it for such a long time now.”
South Africa will, meanwhile, hope the return of captain Faf du Plessis leads to a revival in their fortunes in the second Test.
Dropped catches and wickets off no-balls cost South Africa dear, while their second innings collapse to 119 all out showed how much they could do with Du Plessis’s customary resilience with the bat.
Their task in levelling the series in Nottingham has been complicated by pace bowler Kagiso Rabada being ruled out as he serves a one-game for swearing at Ben Stokes at Lord’s.
“Losing KG [Rabada], do you look at playing a four-seamer attack, because you’re losing quite a high-quality bowler?” Du Plessis said after South Africa’s loss at Lord’s.