Root Hits Back At Kohli for Mocking His Mic-Drop Celebration

Joe Root’s run out in the first innings of the match came at a crucial point as England were at that time cruising on top of the visitors.

Cricket news: The incident has added ‘humour’ to the Test series, says Root

Root, who got out on 80, was dominating the bowling with Jonny Bairstow and had scored a century partnership.

But Kohli’s pinpoint throw at the non-striker’s end from the lag side dislodged the stumps as a struggling Root remained well short of his crease.

Having got his man, Kohli mocked Root’s mic drop celebration which the England skipper had done in the ODI series decider game at Headingley.

After the Headingley innings and his celebration, Root had admitted that he “would not hear the end of it” as his teammates ribbed him incessantly, and now the opposition captain has also mocked him.

“I didn’t see it in the middle,” Root told Sky Sports before the start of the second day’s play. “I obviously saw it last night at the end of play.

“I actually think it adds to the whole spectacle of Test cricket, it gives a bit of humour to it, and it makes for a very entertaining series for something like that to happen so early on, so we’ll see how things pan out over the course of the five Test matches.”

After Root’s runout England succumbed from 216 for 3 to 285 for 9 at the end of the day’s play, losing six wickets for 69 runs.

Talking of the situation Root does not blame his teammate. “It was one of those things in the heat of the moment,” he said. “You want to try and pinch as many runs as possible. You hear a call and you trust your mate.

“It’s human error, it happens unfortunately, but Jonny was kind enough to give me a lift into the ground this morning. I could have said no, there’s no hard feelings, we’ve just got to move on with it.

“It was a disappointing last session, but for the majority of the day, we played some really good cricket. And that’s what we’ve got to take into today. It was a surface that actually did a bit all day, There was seam movement at the back end of the day, and that fills our bowlers with confidence. And if we can find a really good length early on, we can do a lot of damage.”