With a cheeky grin on his face, Joe Root spelled trouble all day for the Indian cricket team by registering another impressive three-digit score to put his team in the driver’s seat. He, along with Dom Sibley, stitched a 200-run partnership making it England’s day.

Batting first, the 30-year-old came out to bat just at the stroke of Lunch after Daniel Lawrence fell to Jasprit Bumrah. Root, playing his 100th Test match, became the first player born in the 1990s to achieve this feat. Mixing caution with aggression perfectly, the captain gave nothing away to the Indian bowlers. He toyed with them all day and brought up his 20th Test hundred.

Joe Root became only the third Englishman to score a century on his 100th Test following Colin Cowdrey & Alec Stewart’s footsteps. The number four batsman continued his rich vein of form in 2021, scoring three centuries in as many games. Cricketers and popular names across nations took to Twitter to applaud the skipper.

The Yorkshire cricketer and the Indian skipper Virat Kohli kept their rivalry aside a couple of times on the first day in Chennai. While Root was cramping after batting throughout the day, Kohli helped him stretch his hammies. This was taken very well by everyone. Another beautiful gesture by the two captains came in the 34th over of the second session. During an over of Ishant Sharma, Virat was stationed at mid-on. Root was at the non-striker’s end and the two were seen having a friendly chat between them. However, the stump mic didn’t catch the conversation and left fans pondering on what might have been the topic of discussion.

On a flat pitch, The Three Lions came up with the goods and enjoyed most of the session pie. They would be ruing the loss of Dom Sibley in the last over of the day, who batted brilliantly with 87 runs off 286 deliveries. At stumps on Day 1, England were 263/3 with Joe Root unbeaten on 128.

Feature image courtesy: AFP / Dan Mullan

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