Fans criticized the Indian team for their failure to maintain their dominance after a strong start on Day 2 of the second Test at Lord’s. The pair of Jamie Smith and Brydon Carse built an unbeaten 82-run stand to put hosts in the driver’s seat at the lunch break.

It was a tale of contrasting halves in the morning session at the home of cricket. India’s star pacer Jasprit Bumrah returned with an exceptional spell with his triple strike to dismantle the home side.

However, Carse’s arrival to the crease changed England’s fortune. It is worth noting that Smith received a reprieve at 5, as KL Rahul dropped his catch, which proved to be costly for the visitors. From there on, the duo garnered odd boundaries and steered the side on a comfortable note.

The commanding partnership between Jamie Smith (51*) and Brydon Carse (33*) has resulted in England ending the first session at 353/7.

Fans slammed the Shubman Gill-led side for their inability to break the stand. One of them wrote:

“KL drops a catch… and now Smith and Carse are building a dangerous partnership. Why can’t Team India get serious about practising catches? This could cost us big.”

Here are the other reactions:

“Hard to understand the tactic of keeping fielders deep & allowing easy singles to Smith & Carse. Almost seemed like India were waiting for the batsmen to make a mistake & get out. Same old story of inability to polishing off the lower order,” a fan posted.

“Weird how India just lost their way of discipline after that ball change. Could have wrapped up England real quick but they have rather let Carse get settled in and have a partnership with Smith. India have to bat 2nd, need to be vary 🏏🤦🏾” another wrote.

“This happens again and again, lower order runs more then 60 runs have been added between Smith and Carse. When someone starts scoring against India. They keep on having their merry ways bcoz India doesn’t have a plan for them. Example – [Matthew] Hayden, [Joe] Root, Steve Smith,” a fan wrote.

Jamie Smith equals Quinton de Kock with his impressive knock in ENG vs IND 3rd Test

Jamie Smith became the joint-fastest keeper-batter to reach 1,000 runs in Test cricket in his 21st innings. He equaled South Africa’s Quinton de Kock, who reached the milestone in the same number of innings in 2017.

Interestingly, Smith has taken the fewest balls (1,303) to achieve the elusive landmark.

List of Fastest keepers to reach 1000 Test runs:

21 innings- Jamie Smith

21 innings – Quinton de Kock

22 innings – Jonny Bairstow

22 innings – Dinesh Chandimal

23 innings – AB de Villiers

Moreover, Smith has become only the third England keeper to score over 400 runs in a Test series, and is the team’s top batter.