Joe Root hails ruthless England

Edgbaston, August 18: England captain Joe Root hailed his team for a ruthless performance against West Indies on the first day of the day-night Test.

Root, Alastair Cook and England hammered the visitors on Thursday (August 17), reaching 348 for 3 at close, having slipped to 39 for 2 in the morning session.

"It has been a very good day," said Root. "We said before the game, if we got into a position of strength, we wanted to drive that forward and be really ruthless. It's something we did well in the previous two games against South Africa and again today," said the England captain who made his 13th Test hundred.

"It will mean nothing though if we don't back it up tomorrow, so for Cooky to be 153 not out, is great. We've got to kick on from here and make sure we get a really big first-innings lead," said the Yorkshireman.

"The twilight period of the day didn't really go well for me, but the guys at the back-end - Cook and Malan - did amazingly well as, in other day-night games around the world, that period seems to be the trickiest.

"It's a very difficult period to come out in bat in - it would be even on a normal Test match day, with 15 overs left in the day - so for Dawid to make sure he was still there at the end, 28 not out, was a fantastic effort."

Root rated pink ball Tests as a different challenge. "It's another challenge that Test cricket throws at you. There are slight differences and we did practice with the pink ball at different points during the day ahead of the game, to make sure we had all bases covered."