3 times Joe Root changed the match with the ball for England in Tests

"Joe Root is a better Test spinner than Moeen Ali. Who says no?", one user tweeted during Day 1 of the second Ashes 2023 Test at Lord's. That statement, outrageous at first glance (how can you compare a part-time bowler with a 195-wicket-old spin leader of the previous Test?) has a sliver of truth in it.

While Moeen has repeatedly failed to turn up for England (on either side of his break from Tests) in the last two years when he has been expected to, Root has earned a name for himself for turning matches in England's favor out of the blue.

On Wednesday, with England playing without any specialist spinner in the team, Root had to take up the ball in just the 47th over. The two-over spell didn't work so he was back in the attack in the 71st against an unstoppable-looking partnership between Steve Smith and Travis Head, probably just to give the pacers some rest.

In just the third over of the new spell, he got Head chasing a wide ball that turned big and out stumped for 77(73). Before England fans would have even completed their sighs of relief, he slid one short and across the new batter, Cameron Green, who pulled shabbily for an easy catch to give Root his second in just four balls.

England couldn't do much with the second new ball but Root's wickets meant they had something to hold on to ahead of Day 2. This was the top-ranked Test batter saving his team with part-time off-spin and it wasn't the first time.

Here are three other instances of Root doing similar magic with the ball for England:

#3 2/26 against Australia in 2019

Joe Root during the fifth Ashes Test in 2019.

The former captain had a similar impact in the last Test of the 2019 Ashes at the Oval as he did at Lord's. Australia led the series 2-1 and England desperately needed to defend 399 on the worn and torn Day 5 track to salvage a 2-2 draw.

Stuart Broad and Jack Leach reduced Australia to 85/4 but they built up a strong partnership with Matthew Wade and Mitchell Marsh, who were taking the game on with calculated risks. It's here where Root excels the best.

He came on in the 42nd over and got Marsh playing a loose flick off his pads to short-leg just nine balls later. He took himself out of the attack immediately after, perhaps thinking his job was done, and Leach and Broad picked up two more.

He came back in the 66th over with the last recognised pair of Matthew Wade and Pat Cummins at the crease and troubled the left-handed wicket-keeper with his variations in line. The offie became more aggressive when Broad got Cummins but Wade had crossed his hundred and was trying his best to build a partnership.

On the first ball of the 76th over, Root bowled one very wide and got it to dip on Wade, in a near identical delivery to Head on Wednesday. Wade tried to step out, like he had done all throughout his innings, but the ball spun from in front of his bat to Bairstow who completed a good stumping.

Leach got the remaining two Aussie wickets in the next over and England won the Test.

#2 4/87 against South Africa in 2020

The series known as Root's best effort as England's Test captain also had one of his best performances with the ball.

The four-Test series between England and South Africa was tied at 1-1 ahead of the third Test. England batted first and racked up 499/9 (declared) with centuries from Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope. The St George's Park stadium offered a turning track uncharacteristic for both South Africa and the Proteas's pace-loving squad.

Off-spinner Dom Bess, who is out of favor now, took advantage of the conditions and picked up five wickets in the first innings to keep the hosts down for 209. Root asked Dean Elgar to follow on and took the role of the frontline spinner.

A red-hot Mark Wood got Elgar and number three Zubayr Hamza out and kept coming on for short spells. Root came on in the 26th over and took Pieter Malan's wicket in the 27th over, right before Tea on Day 4. He used that confidence and kept on bowling in tandem with Bess in the final session of the day.

The then captain got South Africa's three best batters, Rassie van der Dussen, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock, back-to-back. Most of them looked like cases of the batters underestimating the part-time spinner, especially de Kock who brought out a T20 heave in the 46th over to give a good catch to point.

Root ended the spell with 4/87 and England won by an innings and 53 runs.

#1 5/8 against India in Ahmedabad was Joe Root's career-best spell

Joe Root celebrates his first and only five-wicket haul (so far) against India in 2021.

This is the famous two-day pink-ball Test between India and England in Ahmedabad. England only scored 112 after opting to bat first as then international newbie Axar Patel's natural variation on the turning track got him six wickets for 38.

India didn't do too well in reply but Rohit Sharma's 66 (96) ensured they were still at 117/5 in the 42nd over. Leach and Jofra Archer had taken three and two wickets respectively and the onus looked to be on them to pick the rest too.

That's when the skipper brought himself in. He got Rishabh Pant off the first ball, again with a dipping and turning off-break, and never looked back. Washington Sundar and Axar Patel went back within six balls two overs later and Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah followed soon, making up his first five-wicket haul.

Indian batters looked dumbfounded by the amount of turn Root extracted and the accuracy with which he bowled. Interstingly, they started trying to attack Leach at the other end to salvage whatever runs they could. The offie singlehandedly made India collapse to 145, though the hosts still went on to win the Test by 10 wickets.

With this, he earned the record for the most economical five-wicket haul for a spinner and also became the first England captain to pick up a Test fifer since Bob Willis's 5/35 against New Zealand in 1983.