Ben Stokes amazed as ‘incredible’ Joe Root dominates spin in scintillating manner

Ben Stokes was awestruck by the way Joe Root batted against the Indian spinners and stated that he made batting against them quite “rubbish” at one point in time.

Joe Root became the first batsman after Bradman to hit 150+ in three successive overseas Tests and it just went on to confirm his genius. Scintillating with his stroke play and audacious with his sweeps, Root was the root cause of India giving away 555 runs at the end of Day 2.

Ben Stokes, who had his own little contribution with an attacking 82, was left awestruck by the performance and stated that half of the English batsmen can’t play against the spinners the way he does.

“Yeah, it makes us all feel, you know, pretty rubbish (laughs), the way he, how easy he makes batting look. And yeah, I was quite surprised he ran down the wicket and hit a six to bring up a double (century),” Stokes said during a virtual press conference.

“He is in phenomenal form and just makes things look very, very easy and the way that he plays spin, dominates spin and it’s incredible to watch. I don’t think half the England batsmen ever play spin in the way that he does.

“He’s just got options, he has got an option for everything that’s thrown at him and yeah, it is just a delight to watch him at the moment,” Stokes added.

Stokes: We’re in a strong position at the moment

England have pretty much taken the loss out of the equation and Stokes had his own sweet contribution. The Durham lad stated that he was happy about the timing of his innings while adding that they would like to capitalise from the moment here on.

“Yeah, it’s nice coming back in with a (knock like that), with a bit of time off and now spending some time out in the middle, but all in all I think we’re in a very strong position as a team. Batting first and after putting ourselves in and being 500 or whatever we are (555/8), still with two wickets remaining (going into) day three is a very strong position,” Stokes said.

“There were no thoughts whatsoever of a declaration tonight because I’ll be stupid if we won the toss and bat first, you just get as many runs as you can out here in India. And if we can bat for another hour tomorrow, you know, we would be very happy with that,” he added.