Cricket: India's record at Lord's as third Test reaches halfway mark
How have India performed at Lord’s over the years?
The first-ever Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy is set to reach the halfway point on Saturday, and the series is even-steven, with England having secured a remarkable victory at Headingley before India levelled matters at Edgbaston and confirmed our cricket predictions.
The third Test is delicately poised, with the Three Lions posting a first innings target of 387, while India have responded with 145/3 at stumps on Day 2, setting us up for what should be a captivating second half of the match over the weekend.
While there is still plenty of cricket to be played over the next three days, India will be hoping to secure a victory at the iconic Lord’s, where they have typically struggled to produce their best performances since first stepping onto the famous hallowed ground in England’s capital in 1932.
Across their history, India have played a total of 19 Test matches at the Home of Cricket, but have only managed to win three times, while losing 12 games, with the remaining four encounters ending in drawn results.
However, the last decade has seen a significant turnaround in India’s fortunes, with two of their previous three visits to the venue ending in victory. The most recent was a memorable 151-run triumph in 2021 under the guidance of Virat Kohli, while the other came in 2018.
India’s first Test win at the Home of Cricket was led by none other than MS Dhoni in 2014, when paceman Ishant Sharma etched his name in the history books with a sensational spell of 7/74, which got his side to a 95-run victory.
Joe Root adds two more records to glittering career
Joe Root revealed that he endured a sleepless night after Day 1 of the Lord’s Test, when the umpires called stumps with the England batter unbeaten on 99 runs. However, he held his nerve on Friday morning and brought up his century, albeit that he was dismissed four runs later.
Still, the 34-year-old’s ton has taken him into an elite group of cricketers, as he is now in the list of the top five players with the most Test centuries, surpassing former India batter Rahul Dravid and Australian opener David Warner.
Root now has an incredible 37 Test tons to his name, while his knock in the first innings also saw him record his third consecutive three-digit haul at Lord’s, which makes him only the third batsman in history to post three tons in a row at the venue after Jack Hobbs and Michael Vaughan.
However, he was not done there. When the Three Lions took the field on Day 2, Root pulled off a sensational one-handed catch to dismiss Karun Nair off the bowling of skipper Ben Stokes, marking his 211th catch in Test cricket, which now stands as the most by any player.
