Twitter Reactions: Joe Root and Jasprit Bumrah light up Trent Bridge on an intriguing day

The first Test between England and India has been set up nicely. For the major part of the fourth day, sun was out and the hosts made the most of the best batting conditions on offer in the Test match. It turned out to be an intriguing day of Test cricket with Joe Root and Jasprit Bumrah shining and it was due to them, that their respective teams are still in the hunt in the game.

England began the day at 25/0 and runs started flowing soon. But India had sent Rory Burns and Zak Crawley back to the pavilion in the first half hour itself and many thought the visitors will wrap the game soon. It wasn’t to be. Joe Root had other ideas and he played one of his best knocks. Root started accumulating runs right from the word go while Dom Sibley sensationally blocked almost everything.

The England captain was absolutely fantastic going for his shots and scoring at a strike-rate of close to 70. There were excellent cover drives, backfoot punches, everything in his innings as the home team wiped out the deficit in the first session itself. The approach from England was completely different scoring runs at three an over even as India continued to look for wickets.

It was Jasprit Bumrah who finally provided the breakthrough after almost 30 overs. He sent back the dogged Sibley who scored 28 runs off 133 deliveries. Root continued to control the innings with crucial partnerships with Jonny Bairstow (30), Dan Lawrence (25) and Jos Buttler (17). His partners dominated the partnerships and Root getting stuck after crossing the 80-run mark led to England 237/6 at one stage.

Root gets to his majestic ton and then Bumrah ends England’s innings

Sam Curran came out and did what he does the best. He played his shots and while Root was there in the middle, just played second fiddle to him after early couple of boundaries. Meanwhile, Root was stuck at 97 for a long long time and India even burnt a review in an attempt to dismiss him. And soon unfurled a wonderful straight off his bat to celebrate a majestic ton, Root’s 21st in Tests.

The seventh wicket partnership added 37 runs and the new ball came to India’s rescue. Jasprit Bumrah struck in the 81st over to send back Root with an outswinger and soon wrapped up the tail to notch his Test career’s sixth five-wicket haul. Bumrah is certainly back at his best and his nine wickets in the match prove it. His figures of 5/64 helped India bundle England out for 303 runs.

Once again, the visitors didn’t let the opposition’s tail wag with the last three wickets adding only 29 runs. However, Sam Curran scored vital 32 runs yet again helping his team extend the lead.

India lose KL Rahul in the chase

India needed 209 runs to win the Test match and once again, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma got the team off to a good start. James Anderson and Ollie Robinson bowled peaches time and again but the duo did well to add 34 runs. Rahul was brilliant again scoring 26 runs but not before Stuart Broad induced an edge off his bat to finally pick a wicket against India after 60 overs.

Rohit and Cheteshwar Pujara survived a tricky phase then with the latter especially looking uncomfortable. But they hung around till stumps as India ended the day on 52/1 after 14 overs with 157 more runs needed to take a 1-0 lead in the series.

Here’s how Twitter reacted: