Former Australia opener David Warner criticised Joe Root after the latter’s second-innings failure on Day 2 of the first Ashes Test in Perth.
Warner felt that a player with more than 10,000 Test runs to his name should not play a poor shot at such a crucial moment in the match.
While commentating on Fox Cricket, Warner said: “It’s Bazball with no sense, all those three to start. Now we want some smarts in the game, and that just isn’t smart, especially from a guy with over 10,000 runs. Trying to create something out of nothing. They’re well ahead of the game, and that passage of play there could prove costly.”
Root had struggled from the very beginning: he was out for a duck in the first innings and scored only eight runs in the second. In both innings he lost his wicket to Mitchell Starc, who claimed a ten-wicket haul in the match.
In the first innings, Root was squared up by Starc, the edge flying straight to Marnus Labuschagne at third slip. In the second innings he was bowled while trying to force a shot on the off side. Starc has now dismissed Root for the tenth time in Test cricket.
England were 40 runs ahead after the first innings but lost the plot in the second session, where they lost nine wickets and could manage only 164 runs. On the back of a blazing century from Travis Head, Australia chased down the target of 205 in the fourth innings to win the match and take an early 1–0 lead in the five-match series.
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