Joe Root

[meninblue]

Test cricket challenges the physical fitness of players, the temperament, determination to play long innings, shot selection, tactical approach. Many have succeeded this test but a lot more have failed. Out of those who have passed, many have manged to end up as a decent test batsman. The greats have been very few in comparison. One of those is Joe Root. With him comes expectations as fans expect him to contribute significant runs everything he walks in to bat. The opponent captains and bowlers have to be at their best to try and dismiss him. His wicket is just priceless.

At a time when Virat Kohli, Steven Smith and Kane Williamson were doing extremely good, he had a stiff competition. Virat has flopped for 4 out of 5 years now, Steven Smith may find form after his 100 today at Brisbane against India, Kane Williamson is injured a lot in recent 3 years and scoring against top teams has declined. Only Joe Root has remained consistently in form and now is easily the best of the top batsmen in last 10 years.

His contributions with the ball have been crucial as well. Very obvious but needs to be mentioned that because he has been a decent support spinner, he also allowed England ro have balance in the side, be it on Asian subcontinent pitches and climate or places where only 1 specialist spinner can be in playing 11 but support bowler is very much handy.He has taken this workload as well for England apart from being the captain. If he did not have to focus on his bowling practice in nets and not having to bowl in tests, he could have more energy left while batting and had more time in nets as a batsman. Surely would have averaged way more with focusing in batting skills alone.

Hope he scores a lot of runs and gives cricket fans many moments of joy and happiness. Also a priper role model for young cricketers aspiring for career. Not just that the simple and non-fashionable way in which he conducts on and off the field is exemplary. Looking forward to more quality innings by him.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Good stuff Adi.

Trying to be objective, the best England batter of my time watching cricket. Though for me, never a personal hero, or a villain.

He just came along at the wrong time for me, as a fan. Picking my lifetime XI, I'm struggling to leave out Thorpe or KP. So Joe has to bat at three. Even so, I'll miss IJLT.

[meninblue]

Thank you Arthur.

[sussexpob]

As a player, I cannot speak highly enough of Root. Like AC, he is the best player of my lifetime for England, and considering relative eras and the conditions he faced, I don't even have it as a close call. Probably necessary before adding the caveat that I point out Root is a great role model, and seems to be a nice guy and team-mate. He never seemed to be a problematic character, nor a negative presence, which is a lot considering England's history. Nevertheless, his time as captain I think was damaging to the English game. That agreeable side of his character was not built for leadership

Despite the press trying to create Captain Steel mrk II, Root couldn't really have been a worse captain. What stands out is his seeming acceptance of utter mediocracy from his players - making 150 in 10 innings in a row, and mumbling the same nonsense about getting better. England have multiple players averaging 30 to 22 who played 15-20..in some cases 50 times under Root. The moment called for the riot act, but all we got was Root looking classically solemn and trotting out some lame nonsense. I think that is always a stain on his career, because we sunk to all-time levels of poor in our batting.

You see this type of thing in business a lot, where managers have so little authority over people, they sort of accept to be bullied into overlooking incompetence. Bairstow averaged 27 over 50 tests under Root, but played the most caps of any batter. A captain should never accept that performance - he should demand more from the players, and if they dont perform, call them out in public and read the riot act. Demand the selectors dump them, etc.

I never got the sense anyone in the team was under any pressure to perform. So many of them trotted out utter rubbish, but still won 20-30-40-50 caps. In that environment you dont improve.... the players were allowed to be rubbish over and over again. Very few paid with their careers.

[meninblue]

13,259 test runs and 37 test tons now. Apart from the tremendous fitness in long batting innings, he also taken a lot of workload in bowling spin. Has bowled over 1000 overs in tests and more to come.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Holds the record for catches too!

Sticks out that the rest of the top five Test run scorers played at the same time and all retired in 2012 or 13.

[meninblue]

211 test match catches as well

Some are talking about his performance against Australia or something on thsoe lines about a specific series or a country. Not sure about specifics (what they are about) as I personally don't read too much into these minute things, expecailly for a batsman who averages at 50. Seem to me it is just another attempt to pull a great player with batting average of 50 down.

[meninblue]

KP:

Don’t shout at me but batting these days is way easier than 20/25 years ago! Probably twice as hard back then!

Waqar, Shoaib, Akram, Mushtaq, Kumble, Srinath, Harbhajan, Donald, Pollock, Klusener, Gough, McGrath, Lee, Warne, Gillespie, Bond, Vettori, Cairns, Vaas, Murali, Curtley, Courtney and the list could go on and on…

I’ve named 22 above. Please name me 10 modern day bowlers that can compare to the names above?
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Where is Steyn, Shane Bond, Jimmy. Yes they played later but they were around during his time as well. Srinath, Kluesner, Chris Cairns ,Chaminda athough good bowlers should not be in that list though a couple of them will easily replace the main bowlers and some support bowlers of some teams.


In what context is he saying. Joe Root scoring loads and loads of runs or Shubman Gill surprisingly having a very good series or some other context which only he knows. He surely knows how to stir the pot Nice topic during the test match break for all cricket fans to discuss.

Yes, the bowlers of that time were at different level, but anyone who has average of 50 after 157 tests, deserves the appreciation. Subjectively too Joe Root is world class, his approach to test cricket, his fitness, his stamina, his bowling. It is not one series where Joe Root has scored runs. You dont get average of 50 after 157 tests touring different countries so many times by having just one good series.

[sussexpob]

As the 2000s went on and these bowlers had long retired, the narrative from ex-players and commentators lamented mostly the loss of reverse swing in the game, and coaches like Fletcher dedicated many years trying to find a bowler who could bowl it. It seemingly disappeared at some stage in the early 2000s, never to return as it was in the 90s. Some bowlers could reverse it, but like the guys of the past?? No. Its interesting that people would conclude this is a skill issue. The fact is, in 2000 in a match in Colombo, Waqar Younis and Azhar Mahmood became the first players in history that the ICC punished for tampering the ball, coming years after many, many incidents or accusations of tampering had been made.

After being pinned for tampering the ball, what happened to the great reverse swing twins of Pakistan? Akram, who had just taken his career's best figures in WI 2 test before, and had just single handedly annihilated SLs batting line up on a road for 100 all out in the test the cheating was uncovered.... well, he instantly went from the best form of his life to never, ever bowling well in a test again. He played about 10 matches after taking less than a wicket per game at a monstrous average, and quietly retired a year after. Waqar had one freebie series against a very new BD team that everyone took wickets against, and did nothing else for 3-4 years before retiring, mostly being toothlessly average and bowling gun barrel straight.

Akhtar played with at least 4 players I could name who were officially sanctioned for ball tampering, and he was the example of the outlier... the man in the 2000s who could still do it.

Almost like there is a theme here. The ICC clamped down on ball tampering, and reverse swing almost disappeared from the game, only then being extracted by players who played in teams that were caught cheating.

[sussexpob]

I am not sure any of the listed bowlers did well after that Colombo test crackdown. Donald wasn't very good in 2001 and retired in 2002. Srinath was dropped in 2001 after being terrible. Shaun Pollock, wickets v BD and ZIM aside, peaked early in his career and his record in the 2000s when the minnow teams are taken out is not all-time great levels, not bad at all, but not great. Same with Dizzy, another player who was great in the 90s, only good in the 2000s. I think Chris Cairns must be a joke, as is Klusener. Curtley Ambrose and Walsh I think both retired around 2000, Ambrose was still amazing, but then again he was the best of all time... followed by Glenn.

Shane Bond averaged 10 against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and 100 vs Australia.... most overrated player of all time