England skipper Joe Root's performance with the bat could not stop India from maintaining their hold on the second Test at Lord's on Friday. The hosts were 119-3 at stumps on the second day, still, 245 runs drifting of India's first-innings 364. But amid yet another top-order failure, star batsman Root was 48 not out. Root had come in with England striving at 23-2 after Mohammed Siraj took two wickets in successive deliveries with the recalled Haseeb Hameed out for a golden duck. Together with Rory Burns, Root restored some of that loss in a third-wicket partnership of 85 before the left-handed opener was lbw to Mohammed Shami for 49.
The second ball after tea saw Dom Sibley, on 11, tamely chip Siraj to midwicket a repeat of the struggling opener's modest first-innings dismissal during last week's rain-marred drawn the first Test in Nottingham. His exit brought in Hameed, playing his first Test since the last of his three previous caps, all in India five years ago. During the absence, he sustained injuries and a loss of form that saw the now 24-year-old move from Lancashire to Nottinghamshire.
Hameed had replaced Zak Crawley, averaging just 11 in Tests this year. But Hameed's long wait for a home debut Test innings ended, bowled first ball playing down the wrong line to Siraj. England was 23-2 the 15th time in their 19 Test innings this year they had lost their second wicket before reaching 50. That left Root, the lone England batsman to pass fifty at Trent Bridge with scores of 64 and 109, facing an all-too-familiar repair job.
Root blocked the hat-trick ball and when he square-cut Ishant Sharma for four to go to 14, surpassed Graham Gooch's tally of 8,900 Test runs to go second behind Alastair Cook (12,472) in England's all-time list. That shot came during a flurry of four boundaries in six balls, with Burns hitting three fours in one Siraj over -- an off-drive and two resounding pulls. And even as batting became increasingly awkward under the floodlights, Root still eased Jasprit Bumrah through the covers for four with a defensive push.
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