"England's best all-rounder" - Fans on Twitter go gaga over Joe Root's fifer in Ahmedabad
England captain Joe Root put the Indian batsmen into a spin with his first-ever five-wicket haul in Test cricket to upend the 3rd India-England Test.
He returned the magnificent figures of 5-8 in his 6.2 overs - better than the combined tally of England's other 4 bowlers. With this, India were bowled out for just 145 in their first innings, with a slender lead of 33 runs.
Coming to bowl in the 42nd over of India's first innings, Joe Root sent Rishabh Pant packing on the very first ball. The pugnacious wicketkeeper-batsman tried to have a feel for the ball outside off-stump but could only manage a faint edge to the wicketkeeper.
11 dot balls later, all-rounder Washington Sundar followed suit as Joe Root dismissed him with a jaffa. The typical off-spinner pitched the ball in the middle and lured the southpaw to play forward, only for the ball to spin past his bat and knock off the bails.
Axar Patel came in next but not for long. Inscrutably, Patel went for an expensive lofted stroke on just his 2nd ball. He was too close to the pitch of the ball and it lobbed to Dom Sibley at short cover.
Ravichandran Ashwin looked comfortable in his short stay and scored the first runs off Joe Root. But Root trumped him as well, extracting a top-edge from Ashwin's lofted sweep that went straight down the neck of deep mid-wicket.
Jasprit Bumrah was the final wicket to fall as the pacer flailed for a sweep, and missed. The ball hit his back pad, and ball-tracking found it was crashing into the leg stump.
Innumerable questions were raised on Joe Root's decision to pick only one specialist spinner in Jack Leach for the turning track. The skipper answered those questions with his own bowling skills.
Twitter reacts to Joe Root's fifer
Fans on Twitter greeted Joe Root's bowling spell with amusing memes.
Twitterati troll India for poor batting show
Netizens didn't hold back from trolling the home side. Rohit Sharma top-scored for India with his 66, but apart from him, no batsman could even cross 30.