India vs England 2021: Winning The Toss Wouldn't Have Guaranteed A Victory - Joe Root

England captain Joe Root was graceful in accepting that his side was thoroughly outplayed by India in all three departments of the game on a pitch that he termed as ‘challenging’ in the second Test in Chennai.

During the course of the second Test, all the discussions were centred around the nature of the pitch.  Former England captains like Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen had reckoned that the toss was a decider factor on the raging turner.

Root was asked the same in the post-match conference where instead of using toss as an excuse, the English captain lauded Virat Kohli’s men for the manner in which they batted on a very tricky surface. Root said that while winning was toss was crucial, it wasn’t necessarily the deciding factor as India found a way to score runs on the surface.

“I would say it was a challenging wicket. The toss was an important one to win. But it wouldn’t have guaranteed a victory. The fact is that India showed you can score runs on it. They found a way of managing a very tricky surface,” Joe Root said in the post-match conference.

Root further alluded to the fact that a lot of players in his team haven’t experienced these kinds of conditions in their respective careers and the experience of playing on such a surface in the second Test will be a huge learning curve for them. He, however, hoped that the next two matches do not dish out pitches that start turning from the second day itself.

“You’ve got to learn from that. We’ve got to take bits from it, add it to our own game and come back better. They (conditions) are very different to what a lot of our guys have experienced before. It might not be that another Day 2 pitch may spin as much as this one. But it may be Day 3,4, or 5, where it becomes a bit more challenging. Hopefully, guys will learn from it.” he added.

While it was expected that the second Test pitch would be a raging turner, what surprised Joe Root and company was the bounce that it offered.

“(Ball) Probably bounced more than what we had anticipated. But, we need to take that forward, take it as a learning and make sure we are better for it the next time we experience such conditions.” Joe Root revealed.

The English captain doffed his hat to the Indians for outplaying them in the second Test besides urging his team to stay level footed.

“As I said after the last Test, it is very important to stay level. We have played some really good cricket over the recent past in challenging conditions. To be honest, we have been outplayed in all three departments (in the second Test). It is important that we learn, take it as an education, look at how they (India) have gone about it on a surface that spun a huge amount.” he signed off.

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