"Whoever watched Joe Root's knock is fortunate" - Sunil Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar has lauded Joe Root's attacking knock in the second innings of the first Test against India. He added that whoever got to watch the innings was extremely lucky.

Root followed his first-innings 64 with a stroke-filled century in the second essay. The importance of the knock can be gauged by the fact that Sam Curran's 32 was the second-highest score in England's second innings.

While reviewing the first Test on Sony Sports, Sunil Gavaskar spoke in glowing terms about Joe Root's efforts and said:

"Whoever watched Joe Root's knock is fortunate that they saw such a knock. You get to see very few knocks like this in Test cricket, the second-innings century of Joe Root was an extremely good knock."

The former Indian skipper highlighted that Joe Root's knock had bailed the England team out of a difficult situation. Gavaskar elaborated:

"It was a captain's knock. You need to remember that when he came into bat the Indian team was still ahead and two wickets had fallen, the Indian team had a 95-run lead. That lead had to be crossed and then runs had to be scored."

That is a magnificent hundred from @root66. The shots, the context of the match, the strike rate… Such fantastic batting. Young players should watch his movement and the rhythm in his innings. So good.#ENGvIND

— Ian Bell (@Ian_Bell) August 7, 2021

Joe Root walked into bat when England still trailed the Virat Kohli-led side by 49 runs and had lost the wickets of Rory Burns and Zak Crawley. He held the innings together with his 109-run knock and helped the hosts set a reasonable target for Team India.

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Sunil Gavaskar on Joe Root's attacking approach

Joe Root played some pleasing strokes during the course of his innings

Sunil Gavaskar pointed out that Joe Root seemed to have carried on from where he had left off in the first innings. He observed:

"The way Joe Root batted it seemed like the top score he had made in the first innings, he had scored 64 runs, he had the confidence of that knock in the second innings."

The septuagenarian signed off by stating that Joe Root might have had the intention of not letting the Indian attack dominate the proceedings. Gavaskar explained:

"Otherwise, we can also see from a different angle, that he probably wanted to attack the Indian bowlers. If he had not attacked, the Indian bowlers would have been on top of the England batting and they might have faced some difficulty."

Joe Root's 109 came off just 172 deliveries and was studded with 14 hits to the fence.

64 & 109Joe Root is named the Player of the Match – where do you think his second innings hundred ranks among his 21 Test centuries?#ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/HL9jPYdKER

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) August 8, 2021