On this day last year, 9 February 2021, England registered a humongous win over hosts India in the first India-England Test in Chennai. The star of the match was England skipper Joe Root, who finished his 100th Test match in style with a double century.
The match was in England’s favour since the beginning. After two successive wickets at the score of 63, England bounced back with Dom Sibley and Joe Root’s partnership. After Sibley got out for 87, Ben Stokes stepped into his shoes and scored a fluent 82 off 118 balls. At the other end, Root maintained his cool and concentrated on getting England to a commanding position.
Joe Root takes off his helmet in celebration after completing his fifth Test double ton on Day 2 of the first Test between India and England. Image credit: Twitter/@englandcricket
When Root was dismissed for 218, his team had already reached 477/6. England finished with 578.
With his tremendous innings, Root became the only batsman to have scored a century in his 98th, 99th and 100th Test match. He also became the only cricketer to have scored a double ton in his 100th Test. Root is the ninth player to hit a ton in his 100th Test. Before him, Ricky Ponting, Alec Stewart, Colin Cowdrey, Gordon Greenidge, Javed Miandad, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla have achieved this feat.
It was also a special match for Root as the England skipper had made his Test debut against India in 2012. The Yorkshire batsman has scored a total of 952 runs in the 10 games he has played in India, boasting of a strike rate of 51.12.
While India did try to put up a spirited fight, they were restricted to 337 by a terrific bowling partnership between Dom Bess, Jofra Archer, Jack Leach and James Anderson. While Bess scalped 4 wickets, the rest of the bowlers got two each.
England then scored 178 in their second innings, with Ashwin demolishing the English batting side with his 6/61.
India had to score 420 runs to win the game. While then-skipper Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill tried to keep the momentum going with their scores of 72 and 50, respectively, India were bowled out for 192 runs.
England won the first Test by 227 runs on 9 February last year, making skipper Root’s 100th game extra special for him.
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