Sourav Ganguly calls this batter an ‘All-time Great’ and it’s not Virat Kohli!
England started their new McCullum-Stokes era by winning the first match of the series against New Zealand by five wickets. Joe Root’s masterclass in the fourth innings was the major difference between the two sides. After this victory, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly took to his Twitter to praise the beauty of the longest format of the game.
Ganguly also praised the former England Test captain Joe Root for his incredible unbeaten innings of 115 runs off 170 balls. It came while chasing the target of 277. He expressed his joy by stating him as an all-time great in Test cricket history. He heaped high praises for Root as he played the innings under tremendous pressure as England was struggling by losing four wickets for 69 runs only.
Here are the tweets from Sourav Ganguly’s account:
Joe Roooooooot ..what a player what a knock under pressure ..an all time great ..@bcci @icc
— Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) June 5, 2022
Whatever format u see..whatever the colour of the jersey u wear ..none beats such a game of test cricket ..no comparison@bcci @ICC ..let's keep this format the pinnacle ..
— Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) June 5, 2022
Former India captain also praised the beauty of the Test cricket. He said: “Whatever format u see..whatever the colour of the jersey u wear ..none beats such a game of test cricket ..no comparison@bcci ..let’s keep this format the pinnacle ..” Ganguly wished to keep this format at the top for the coming days as well.
Speaking about the match, New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first. The Kiwis only managed a score of 132 in the first innings due to excellent spells from James Anderson and the debutant Matty Potts. Meanwhile, the Ben Stokes-led side also got bundled out for 141 runs and managed a small lead of nine runs only. In the second innings, Daryl Mitchell’s ton and Tom Blundell’s 96 runs helped to set a target of 277 runs for the host. However, despite some early jolts during the chase, former captain Joe Root scored his 26th ton to ensure a winning start to the new era of English Test cricket under the leadership of Stokes.
After this innings, Joe Root has now scored 10015 runs in 118 Test matches (218 innings) at an average of 49.57. He is now in the fourth position of the Men’s Test batting rankings with 843 points.
