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In this series, Joe Root has scored 42, 62 not out, 143, and 103 so far. He averages 67.55 versus Sri Lanka on average; he hit massive scores of 186 and 228 in his most recent series against them, both of which took place in Galle.
He has excellent reverse and sweep skills, a propensity to take the initiative against seamers, and some of the strongest defensive methods in the game when he decides to defend.
It is hardly surprising that the topic of “How do we get Root out?” has dominated a lot of Sri Lanka’s team conversations leading up to the third Test.
Senior batsman and former captain Dimuth Karunaratne claims that despite Sri Lanka’s rapid ascent through multiple strategies, they were forced to start over due to Root’s unwavering superiority in this series. Once more, they are generating ideas.
“We’ve tried a few things against Joe but they were always unsuccessful,” Karunaratne said. “I think the turning points in the matches have been those Joe Root innings. Even when we’ve played at Galle, he’s hit big runs, but the batters around him haven’t scored as heavily. We really need to minimise the runs he’s scoring.”
“We need to look at his past performances more closely, see where he’s got out, and what kinds of things we can do on these pitches. We need to make a new plan based on that.”
Counterintuitively, Karunaratne thinks perhaps this can come about by attacking him less.
“Maybe sometimes we attack him too much and he takes advantage of that. Some players don’t like it when we ask them to be less aggressive. Sometimes boring batters out can also be a tactic.”
For Karunaratne, the fact that Root has scored 153 more runs than the next-best England batter, is proof that batting has been difficult.
“In England the conditions are tough for batters, and we saw that even their openers struggled, as well as their No. 3. Apart from Joe Root the others also struggled despite this being home conditions for them. We’re playing after a very long time here.”