Joe Root admits not declaring the innings keeping in mind Rishabh Pant's ability to score runs

England created history on Tuesday by beating India in the first Test at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The visitors won the match by 227 runs and completely dominated the hosts to take a lead in the four-match Test series. The win has also pushed England to the top of the points table of ICC World Test Championship 2019-21. 

Throughout the game, England made some really good calls as a team and was good with all the tactical changes. However, one thing which had surprised many people was England’s approach to bat on day four when they were setting a total for India. Some experts had felt that the visitors took too long to declare. Eventually, they didn’t declare the innings as they got all out for 178 runs.  

At the post-match press conference, captain Joe Root explained what exactly had happened and what made them not declare the innings. He revealed it was done so that the bowlers don’t feel the pressure of saving runs when going for wickets. When England got bowled out, India needed 420 runs to win the match with a little over 100 overs to bat. 

I wanted to make sure that there were only two results possible in this game: Joe Root

“We could have declared earlier, for sure, we could have. I wanted to make sure that there were only two results possible in this game. I wanted to make sure that we turned up today with the ball still being hard. We wanted to give our bowlers an extra bit of time to be raring to go. We wanted to get to 400 and then we wanted to press the accelerator. Actually, it was going to be really important that we had runs on the board as it was a fast outfield,” said Root during the virtual press conference after the match and was quoted by The Daily Guardian.

The England captain also pointed out that Rishabh Pant’s presence was also a point of consideration while making that decision. The Indian wicket-keeper had scored 91 runs from just 88 balls in the first innings. He had taken on the England bowlers fearlessly. 

“Rishabh Pant bats for one session and he can make things quite interesting. I did not want the pressure of having to contain and as well as take wickets. I wanted to make sure that the bowlers were concentrating on the ways of finding the wickets on that surface. We were always going to create ten chances, we just had to be disciplined and take the chances that came our way. We could have declared earlier, I am just glad how it has turned out,” Root added.