England adopt unusual slip position with Joe Root to tackle dead Multan pitch

Joe Root. (Source - Twitter/X)

England stalwart and one of the safest fielders Joe Root had an eventful time on the field on Day 1 of the ongoing second Test of the against Pakistan in Multan. After pulling antics with Jack Leach, Root decided to set up an unusual ploy with Ben Stokes in a bid to break the brewing stand between Saim Ayub and debutant and Babar Azam's replacement, Kamran Ghulam.

After suffering some early jolts, the duo got down to spend time in the middle and settled down on the pitch after a while. Both Ayub-Ghulam batted quite sensibly without pressing the panic button and went on to put up a significant 149-run partnership for the third wicket. As a result, Pakistan bailed out the initial scares to finish the day on a satisfactory note.

However, at one stage, after bowlers failed to dismiss the young batters for a long duration, it was skipper , who decided to take the bowling role in his hand after he noticed some hints of reverse swing an over before. For the unversed, Stokes made his return to Test cricket after going under the knife and recovering from a knee injury. The all rounder tried to push himself a bit to get some wobble off the pitch which was assisting spinners. Keeping that in mind, the hosts fielded a team with a plethora of spinners in the playing XI.

Eventually, while bowling, Stokes along with noticed that the ball was not generating enough bounce which could carry through to the wicketkeeper or in the slips. Hence, came up with interesting yet unusual fielding tactics after he invited some thin edges from the batters. Root was spotted standing ahead of Jamie Smith, the wicketkeeper of the team. But not just that, while standing in the slip cordon, he also donned a helmet, which garnered immense attention among the fans on the social media domain.

Check out the viral image of Joe Root's slip moment here:

Joe Root wearing helmet while standing in Slips cordon on Day 1 of second Test vs Pakistan in Multan#PAKvsENG pic.twitter.com/u4h6fzR9Ol

— Virat AV (@av_vk18) October 15, 2024

Stokes-Root's fielding tactic helped England dismiss Saim Ayub

While pulling off this short slip position, Root brought his own experience and made adjustments to his positions based on different bowlers. Notably, the young pacer, Matthew Potts, bowls quite fast and hence Root was standing accordingly while keeping him safe. The tactic came to fruition soon after as Saim Ayub (77 off 160 balls) who was looking good to score a century, failed to play on the top of the bounce and got out at the stroke of tea.

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Consequently, Pakistan were 173/3 at that stage of the game. As the day progressed, the experienced Rizwan played sensibly. In the end, Pakistan finished the day with the veteran batter and Salman Agha with scores reading 259/5 at stumps.