Joe Root might have smashed a ton in the ongoing third Test but India pacer Mohammed Shami said the visiting side is not bothered by the England skipper’s form and have faith in their abilities and skills.
Root completed his 23rd Test ton as England gained full command over India on Day 2 of the third Test on Thursday. Shami said there is no point in thinking over Root’s purple patch and the visitors must back their skills if they want to come back in the game.
“You may feel like that from the outside. (that all four visitors’ pacers were ineffective against Root). But that is not the case. Root is at his peak at the moment. When a batsman is in very good flow and great touch, he scores a lot of runs,” said Shami after the end of the day’s play.
“We are not bothered a lot about Root. Some or the other batter is going to score runs. If their captain is scoring runs, so be it. We are only concerned with the end result.
“There is no point in thinking too much about a batter scoring so many runs. Instead, we have to believe in our skills. We need to back ourselves and not think about others. We don’t want to take too much pressure about it, and instead have faith in our ability,” he added.
England finished the second day on 423/8 with Overton (24*) and Ollie Robinson (0*) at the crease. Shami feels batting became easy when hosts came out to bat but didn’t shy away from admitting that the visitors put on a poor show.
“The pitch has become slower and that’s why they had it so easy while batting. If it wasn’t for that, the result would have been completely different,” said Shami.
“Yeah, we also got out a bit too early while batting. But we have come to this situation after two days, there’s no need to get our heads down. I feel you should always believe in your skills and now think about batting long in the second innings,” he added.
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