English media came down heavily on their very own as they slammed Joe Root led team left, right and center after Lord’s debacle. Going into the final day, the hosts had the match in the firm grip with India losing half their side; but the game turned on its head as Indian tail-enders: Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami batted England out of the game. Prominent British tabloids like The Guardian, Daily Mail were right down Joe Root’s throat.
“This Test match has proved two things,” Geoffrey Boycott wrote in the Telegraph.“Emotion got the better of England and common sense went out of the window. Captains are expected to keep a cool head even when fast bowlers lose theirs and get carried away with emotion and passion and get bouncer happy. But Root lost the plot.”
Lawrence Booth, Widen Editor, was also critical of Root’s captaincy. “When there was a chance, Root put down Bumrah at slip off Moeen Ali, looking for all the world as if the edge had taken him by surprise.”
“It’s one thing to have a word with the opposition, it’s another when they are two tailenders who have made you look foolish,” he wrote in Dailymail. “English cricket has endured some grim moments down the years, and this was a fiasco as grim as any.”
David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd said England were interested in revenge. “There’s always something great about a tail-end partnership. Bumrah and Mohammed Shami just had a lot of fun at England’s expense. It looked as if England had totally lost the plot,” he wrote in Dailymail.
The Guardian said: “There was nothing casual in Kohli’s choice of words late on the fourth evening to James Anderson, that this wasn’t his “f***ing backyard”. India didn’t just win at Lord’s; they annexed it.”
India beat England by 151 runs in the second Test match to take 1-0 lead in the five match Test series.
