'Horrific tactics': Root denies getting lured into bouncer war

England captain Joe Root has accepted responsibility for what Shane Warne labelled "horrific tactics" on a pivotal fifth morning of the second Test against India at Lord's.

The home side struck twice early in the morning session, leaving them 182 runs behind and with just two more wickets to get, with CricViz giving them a 47 per cent of winning the match at that point.

But when Root brought speedster Mark Wood into the attack, set fielders back on the rope and seemingly attempted to bounce out tail enders Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, the match turned in India's favour.

The batting pair withstood the short-ball barrage and then flourished in a match-changing 89-run partnership that ruined any hopes England had of winning the game and paved the way for a famous Indian victory.

England's tactics, particularly to Bumrah, were seemingly in response to the Indian quick's own short-ball assault to Jimmy Anderson late on day three, which drew the ire of the English veteran.

Warne said England got "a bit too emotional" and focused too much on getting their own back on Bumrah rather than getting him out.

"They're standing there scratching their heads saying, 'what went wrong?' and what went wrong was horrific tactics," Warne told SEN.

"They had five, six, seven fielders on the fence. The bowler is standing at the top of his mark looking around saying, 'how am I going to get some of these guys out?'.

"They got a bit too emotional, a bit too much short stuff and in the end the best team won, and that was India."

Former England coach David Lloyd agreed with Warne, saying, "(England) just seemed intent on knocking lumps off (Bumrah) rather than getting him out ... it looked as if England had lost the plot."

Root denied that England had been sucked into retaliating to Bumrah's bowling, but did acknowledge India had used the emotion of the match to their advantage.

"Fair play to Virat (Kohli) and his team," he said. "They jumped on to something that emotionally gave them an edge."

And Root conceded his tactics on the fifth morning were wide of the mark.

"I think a lot falls on my shoulders as captain," he said. "Tactically I could have done things slightly differently.

"The (Shami and Bumrah partnership) was the pivotal moment of the game, without question, and I don't think I dealt with that well enough tactically. It put us in a difficult position.

"Looking back, I'd look at some of the field placings and the way that we bowled. We could have looked at maybe attacking the stumps a little bit more frequently and using the short ball as more of a surprise.

"We have to give them some credit. They scored in unusual areas and made it hard to set conventional fields and (we) were trying to manage taking wickets but not letting the game get away from us.

"But I would have taken a little bit more time and probably brought more modes of dismissal into the game sooner.

"When the ball got softer, it didn't seem to move as much laterally as with the newer ball but we probably underestimated how useful challenging a lower-order player's defence can be."

India opener KL Rahul, who was named player-of-the-match for his hundred on the opening day, said England's tactics had galvanised the tourists.

"If you go after one of our guys, all 11 of us will come at you," he said. "That got us going and the bowlers were really pumped and wanted to have a real crack at them."

Root, who is averaging 128 for the series, added his team's output with the bat needs to improve ahead of the third Test in Leeds, which starts on August 25.

"Credit to India but I don't think there is any hiding from the fact we need to get better," he said.

"We need to score heavier. The guys will know that. They are working extremely hard. We need to be better at building big partnerships.

"We did it well for periods in this game in the first innings but we need to do it for longer and make it count, make it last. We also need to be better at starting our innings, finding a way into the match."