TOP SPIN AT THE TEST: England cruise to highest successful run chase

TOP SPIN AT THE TEST: England cruise to highest successful run chase… as Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root record the fourth-highest partnership in the fourth innings of a Test match

  • England chased their highest target in a Test match after breezing to 378-3
  • It beat their previous best of 359, set against Australia in the ‘Ben Stokes’ Test
  • Joe Root now has nine Test hundreds against India, more than anyone in history
  • Jonny Bairstow is the 12th England player to score two hundreds in a Test 

Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root both hit hundreds as England recorded a stunning seven-wicket victory over India in the re-arranged fifth Test.

Chasing 378 to win, England wasted little time in reaching their target in yet another superb performance under the new leadership team of Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes. 

 Sportsmail‘s LAWRENCE BOOTH provides the big stats from Edgbaston.

England’s pursuit of 378 was their highest successful chase, beating 362 for nine (chasing 359) against Australia at Headingley in 2019. Only one other team have chased more to win a Test in England: Don Bradman’s 1948 Australian ‘Invincibles’ managed 404 for three.

Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root guided England to their highest-ever run chase in Tests

Four of England’s top 14 fourth-innings run chases have now come in successive Tests: 277, 299 and 296 against New Zealand, followed by this game against India.

Joe Root now has nine Test hundreds against India – more than anyone in the game’s history. He previously shared the record with Garry Sobers, Viv Richards, Ricky Ponting and Steve Smith.

After his hundreds last summer at Trent Bridge, Lord’s and Headingley, this was his fourth of the series. It is a feat achieved by only three other England batsmen: Herbert Sutcliffe twice (against Australia in 1924-45 and South Africa in 1929), Walter Hammond (Australia in 1928-29), and Denis Compton (South Africa in 1947).

Root now has nine Test hundreds against India and is one of only four batsmen to score four centuries in a series

HIGHEST FOURTH INNINGS STANDS

DG Bradman, AR Morris (AUS) – 301 versus England at Leeds, 1948

HA Gomes, CG Greenidge (WI) – 287* v England at Lord’s, 1984

WJ Edrich, PA Gibb (ENG) – 280 v South Africa at Durban, 1939

JM Bairstow and JE Root (ENG) – 269* v India at Edgbaston, 2022

CS Serjeant, GM Wood (AUS) – 251 v West Indies at Georgetown, 1978

 

 

 

 

Root’s career haul is now 28 Test hundreds – more than any other active batsmen. Virat Kohli and Steve Smith are next on the list, with 27, followed by Kane Williamson and David Warner on 24. Eleven of them have come since the start of last year alone.

He is also becoming the master of run chases. Before this summer, his fourth-innings Test average was 32, with no hundreds. Now he can boast 115 not out at Lord’s, 87 not out at Headingley (both against New Zealand) and now 142 not out here. His fourth-innings average now reads 41.

Only Mark Butcher, with 173 not out against Australia at Headingley in 2001, has scored more in a successful fourth-innings chase for England than Root’s unbeaten 142.

Jonny Bairstow is the 12th England player to score two hundreds in a Test – and the first since Andrew Strauss against India at Chennai in 2008-09. 

The only other England player to achieve the feat at Edgbaston is Marcus Trescothick, against West Indies in 2004. Apart from Bairstow and Strauss, only Graham Gooch has done it against India – at Lord’s in 1990.

Bairstow now has six Test hundreds in 2022, equalling the England record for a calendar year – and there are six Tests still to go before 2023. Compton (in 1947), Michael Vaughan (2002) and Root (2021) all made six too. And Root has five this year himself. 

Bairstow continues his purple patch and is only the 12th England player to score two hundreds in a Test




Share this article

Source: Read Full Article