As the Ashes approach, former England captain Nasser Hussain has suggested that Joe Root needs to sharpen his slip catching skills. If Root drops any chances from players like Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, it would mean England might be in trouble according to Hussain.
Notably though, for the second Test against Sri Lanka, Root scored two centuries. Yet on Day Four, he was a bit off with his catching. The Yorkshire cricketer dropped many catches although it ended up not costing hosts as they comfortably won at the end. The 56-year-old wrote in The Daily Mail:
“Sri Lanka, like West Indies, do not play a lot of Test cricket, but as we move into the final Test of the summer this week, England have done enough against the pair to suggest they are positioning themselves nicely for the Australian challenge.”
“However, although Root’s batting was it its superlative best, for someone with such high standards, there is one thing he must improve on — his catching. He put down multiple chances here. Drop Steve Smith or Marnus Labuschagne and it could be Ashes gone,” Hussain added.
At Lord’s he hit his 34th thus leaving Alastair Cook behind him on top of England’s Test century list (Joe Root). Besides this milestone, Joe also took over Graham Gooch (2,015) for most runs scored at Lord’s having accumulated 2,022 runs so far and consequently became the first cricketer ever to achieve 200 catches in Test matches having played for England.
“Sunday’s conditions were hot and arid” – Naseer Hussain
Nasser Hussain was also quite amazed at the pace attack England had as they utilized it to overthrow Sri Lanka for all their twenty wickets on a largely unyielding surface. In a similar vein, he wrote:
“Conditions on Sunday were hot and dry, the pitch was pretty flat and there wasn’t a lot of spin, or a lot of swing. It is on days like these your bowling attack. Sri Lanka have a pretty decent batting line-up, so for an England side without Stuart Broad or Jimmy Anderson to twice bowl out the opposition on this Lord’s pitch was a seriously good effort.”
England will aim for a 3-0 series sweep over Sri Lanka in the third and final Test, starting on September 6 at The Oval.