England vs India 2021: We've Got To Go Through The Gears- Joe Root Wants England To Be Ruthless

England skipper Joe Root wants his team to take confidence from the Headingley win and continue to dominate the proceedings against India in the rest of the series. Root-led England crushed India by an innings and 76-runs in the third Test at Headingley last week.

The 30-year-old batsman is in prime form, having scored three centuries in the last three matches. He has been carrying the English batting line-up until his mates turned up to support him in the third match. Having leveled the series, Root hopes his team can be ‘ruthless’ in the last two games.

“Now is when the hard work starts. We’ve got to look to go even further, dig deeper, and really start to go through the gears. A world-class side like India, led by Virat Kohli, I expect nothing less than a response.”

“It would be naive to think otherwise. We’ve just got ourselves back to level and, if we find ourselves ahead of the game at any stage, we must get ruthless again,” Root was quoted as saying to reporters on Tuesday.

“Trying to manage workloads alongside performance is tricky” – Joe Root

The English team has been big on making changes to manage players’ workloads – their rotation policy is a prime example of that. The 39-year-old James Anderson and Ollie Robinson have combined to bowl around 230 overs in the three Tests they have played and their fitness may take a hit as a result.

Since England is already missing A-team players in Jofra Archer, Stuart Broad, and Ben Stokes, rotating bowlers isn’t easy either. However, Root was wary of making sure his players don’t get injured considering they have an Ashes series coming up later this year.

“Trying to manage workloads alongside performance is something in the current climate, with the game coming thick, that is always going to be tricky.”

“You come off a win like last week and there’s continuity of confidence and trying to replicate a similar performance, but you’re trying to balance that and make sure you don’t blow someone out and injure someone,” Root added.

Chris Woakes and Mark Wood were added to the squad for the fourth Test so the management does have players to choose from for the Oval Test.

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