Cricket World Cup 2019: Joe Root turns on style with century as England hammer West Indies
Joe Root was the star yet again as England cruised to victory but the World Cup hosts have plenty to ponder with two key players facing a race against time to be fit for the rest of the tournament.
The good news for England is that they won. Impressively as well.
Now for the bad news.
Two key batsmen are struggling with injuries.
Joe Root scored his second century of the World Cup as England crushed West Indies by eight wickets in Southampton with 16.5 overs to spare.
It was a real statement of intent.
But the result was marred by injuries to Eoin Morgan and Jason Roy, although Morgan said there was no reason for England to panic.
Morgan suffered a back spasm and Roy had tightness in his left hamstring. Neither batted in England’s reply.
“I think when any two players go down it is a little bit of a worry,” said Morgan.
“I don’t think -- we are not at panic stations or anything yet.
“We will just see how we get on in the next 48 hours and go from there.”
Morgan said he was forced to stand at the press conference because he was in pain.
“Yeah, it’s sore. I’ve had back spasms before,” he said.
“We think it is another back spasm.
“It normally takes a few days to settle down. It’s unclear. We’ll know more in the next 24 hours, see how I pull up tomorrow.”
Morgan was also unclear on the extent of the injury to Roy, who scored 153 in England’s win against Bangladesh last week.
“I don’t know how he will pull up tomorrow,” he said.
“He had a tight hamstring so he will go for a scan tomorrow and probably it will take 48 hours before we have the results and stuff.”
Test captain Root opened alongside Jonny Bairstow in place of the injured Roy.
“It’s obviously nice for this hundred to mean something and for us to win. It was a great toss to win and important we followed through on that,” Root said.
“You pride yourself on working it out as a batsman, building big partnerships either when setting or closing down a chase like we did today.
“It was a really good team effort and performance and puts us in a good place going into the next match.”
Root, who made 107 in England’s defeat against Pakistan, made batting look easy, scoring a run-a-ball 50 without having to take unnecessary risks as he and Bairstow tamed the West Indies quicks.
He reached three figures off 93 balls with 11 fours and is now the tournament’s top-scorer - with a total of 279 runs in four innings.
Frustrated West Indies captain Jason Holder said: “We didn’t put enough runs on the board. There were a few careless shots, if we had hung in a bit longer we could have got some more in the end.
“We need more ownership in the middle. Batters got out at crucial stages, we need to correct it. It’s happened twice in two games now.”
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