Bumrah’s spell was the real turning point: Root

London, Sep 07 (PTI): England captain Joe Root stated that Jasprit Bumrah’s spell was the real turning point of the game after the hosts were beaten by India by 157 runs in the fourth Test, on the fifth and final day at the Kennington Oval on Monday.Indian bowlers stamped their authority on Day 5 to seal the match and take a 2-1 series lead.
“It’s frustrating… thought we’ll get something from the game today. We had an opportunity of winning a Test match. The opening partnership was outstanding.
“Credit to India, they got the ball to reverse. I thought Bumrah’s spell was the real turning point of the game. From our side, we’ll have to look at other areas where we missed opportunities, maybe we should have made more of an advantage with the first innings lead and should have taken the chances that were offered,” Joe Root said at the post-match presentation on Monday.
“He’s (Bumrah) is a superb bowler and at times we need to be realistic and accept that he bowled really well, that was world-class bowling. Have to manage better if we’re in a similar situation in the near future, especially our game against reverse swing. Whenever we lose a game, we can always look back at the toss, we can always think about a few things and the way it happened, but at the end of the day, we need to be ruthless, should have got more than a 100-run lead.”
“We needed that big hundreds, big partnerships — we need to play good cricket right around in Old Trafford, can’t get complacent and get those big runs which sets up the game, which we did a week ago (in Headingley). You can pick out individuals, but need to work collectively as a batting group. Having got starts, you have to make those 20-30 runs count.”
Root said the injuries in the team have been frustrating. “Yesterday was a difficult day, some difficult chances (on Burns’s drop at slip), it’s very difficult at times, we need to know which ones to go to and keep taking our chances. It’s not about the lack of effort, not about the lack of work, we just need to keep raising our slip catching standards. Woody is coming good, that’s promising. It’s been frustrating with the number of injuries that we have to contend with, but we can’t get away with that. We’ll have one big push going ahead at OT (Old Trafford), injuries are something we need to manage, the guys have been excellent, they’ll go out and play next week in Old Trafford and I’m proud of their effort.”

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