Just hours ago England won an important and must win contest in the light of just where the series is at the moment against India at the Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. It was a brilliant and nerve wracking performance in the context of where their own scoreboard was at one stage with the score far from 200 with big wickets in the form of Jos Buttler, Jacob Bethell, and captain Harry Brook already dismissed and back in the dugout.

In the end, despite the win, which resulted in the form of a 4 wicket triumph, the hosts definitely did make a match of what should ideally have been a pretty straightforward run chase.

And in the end, things came to matter around one man, in particular. It’s that man who has saved England time and again both as former captain and constant battler wielding the imploring willow in hand: Joe Root. Playing a heck of an inning, first rescuing the England scorecard from a precarious situation where they once where 125/5 (when Buttler departed), to being 197-6 and ultimately going past the 234 run mark set by India, Joe Root remained at the crease.  

He was unbeaten until the very end scoring 99 highly valuable and very classy runs. When you view his contribution from the context of the runs he scored- nearly two thirds of England’s score- you realise the massive importance of his innings.

But what was perhaps debatable and a touch weird was to see the winning runs scored in the form of a boundary smashed by regular fast bowler and part time batter Gus Atkinson, who struck 23 valuable runs himself off just 16 deliveries whacking a touch shortly pitched one off Prasidh Krishna. This was when he was amply aware of the fact that Joe Root at the other end was unbeaten on 99 and hence, just a run away from what would have been a fighting hundred. A very top of the drawer effort!

So was that part of their understanding that if the ball was there to be hit, it would be hit or was it some sort of miscalculation where perhaps sensing the opportunity to go big, Atkinson, the hitter of England’s winning runs perhaps forgot that he could have simply taken a single to give the strike to the towering batter at the other end.

Irrespective, a Joe Root hundred wasn’t there to be and the great man, who scored another fifty and remained unbeaten in the first game of the series followed it up with an exact same act. What’s more? There wasn’t even the slightest of remorse on the fine right hander’s face as Root immediately rushed to fist bump Atkinson, who was at the strike when England won.

However, all said and done, the Indian captain when asked about how he may have felt had he been left stranded on the other hand on 99 not out offered his piece of mind in the post match presentation, and the following is what he said:

“I wouldn't have taken that single in the second last over!”

On the other hand, Root himself shared the following when addressing the media presser post the contest: “We play to win the games, not this, the series is very much alive, it's more important".