Joe Root

Joe Root, born on 30th December 1990, hails from a rich cricketing background. His grandfather captained Rotherham CC in the Yorkshire League for several seasons whilst his younger brother, Billy, is a regular with Glamorgan. In addition to being awarded a Daily Telegraph scholarship at the 2005 Bunbury festival, Root also attracted cricket scholarships at Workshop College, the school he attended, and Yorkshire Cricket academy. The gifted batsman celebrated his Yorkshire second Team debut in July 2007 with a fifty.

There was no looking back as Root's meteoric rise continued unabated. A thoroughly emphatic Man of the Series performance for England Under-19 against Bangladesh Under-19 in 2010 witnessed the 'boy wonder' land a three-year professional contract with Yorkshire. Having marked his County Championship debut at the onset of 2011, Root established himself as a reliable batsman. The big breakthrough ensued in the following season when Root cracked an undefeated 222 in the County Championship encounter against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl.

It was not long before Root's consistency earned him a Test berth as he was picked for England's historic Indian sojourn in 2012. Alastair Cook and his merry men surmounted tremendous odds to taste victory in the Test series. Among several stellar displays - Root's debut, a baptism by fire, stood out. When young Root strode out to bat in Nagpur, England were reeling at 139 for five with India's spin quartet - Ravi Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Piyush Chawla and Pragyan Ojha ruling the roost. Almost unmindful of the slow nature of the pitch that was described as one of the toughest by Kevin Pietersen, Root starred in a composed 289-minute 73, the sixth longest innings by an English batsman on debut, to steer England to a safe stalemate and in the process a series win.

In the subsequent ODI series, Root compiled four successive scores of 30 plus including his maiden half-century in the fourth ODI. Root's right-arm off-breaks also presented a more than useful bowling option to Cook. The champagne moment of Yorkshire cricket arrived when Root along with another Yorkshire-bred batsman, Jonny Bairstow, pieced together a 124-run partnership versus New Zealand to prop up England at Headingley. During the process, Root reached his maiden ton and England romped to a 247-run win.

Root was in for another stern examination, this time at the top of the order in the 2013 Ashes when he was asked to open. He responded brilliantly with a monumental 180 in the second innings of the second Test at the home of cricket, Lord's. Root's insatiable hunger for runs helped him secure a central contract following England's 3-0 drubbing of their arch-rivals. He was also at it in the Champions Trophy in 2013, hitting 173 runs, the most by an Englishman. Just before The Ashes series got underway in England, he was involved in an ugly altercation with David Warner which ended with the latter 'throwing a punch' on Root. With Michael Carberry also racking up big runs to seal the opening slot alongside Cook, Root returned to his customary No. 6 role for the return Ashes that same year. He was later promoted up the order when Jonathan Trott left the tour midway due to a stress-related illness. He failed in the entire series with only a couple of noteworthy performances to account for.

However, the selectors retained their faith in him and he was a part of England's squad to West Indies. Root did not disappoint and put up a solid display in the ODI series finishing as the highest run-getter, including his maiden ton in the fourth ODI. For his stellar performance, Root was also adjudged as the Player of the Series. Sadly, he was forced to leave the tour midway due to a broken thumb and was ruled out of the World T20 tournament in 2014.

Root went from strength-to-strength in 2014, he started the summer with an unbeaten 200 against Sri Lanka at Lord's and followed it up with two more hundreds against India. He was also a standout performer in the 50-over format and the only batsman to hold his own in the 5-2 drubbing against Sri Lanka. He was one of the first names to be penned down when the 15-member World Cup squad was picked for the 2015 edition.

Root's stocks zoomed after a successful 2015 Ashes series against arch-rivals, Australia. Having started the series with a fluent 134 at Cardiff, an innings which helped his team gain the early advantage, he then made a superb 130 in Nottingham to help England regain the Ashes after having suffered a 5-0 hammering a year and a half ago. In all, Root made 460 runs during the series at an impressive average of 57.50.

Root had well and truly arrived and he then went on to make a career-best 254 - against Pakistan in Lord's. Root was now crowned as one of the FAB four young batsmen in the world - alongside the captains of Australia, New Zealand and India. Having played just one Test during his debut tour of India in 2012, the 2016 series was expected to be Root's biggest Test of his career. He started with a hundred, but the age old problems of not converting fifties into hundreds came back to haunt him. He made four scores of fifty plus and ended the series with 491 runs at an average of 49.10 - clearly the best England batsman on the tour in 2016. England went down in the series.

Having become an established player for England across formats, Root took over the Test captaincy from Alastair Cook in February 2017 with the latter stepping down after a four-year stint. Root's first assignment was the home series against a probing South African outfit. He shone with the bat and also led decently as England comfortably clinched the series. West Indies were the next visitors and they were also brushed aside although they did stun the pundits by winning a Test match. Root seemed to be fairly in control tactically although it was arguable if he was as influential on the field as a captain needs to be. An away tour was the best way to analyse this part.

An Ashes campaign is a historic part of a cricketer's campaign and to have that as your first overseas assignment makes it extremely tough for any captain. Like most visiting sides in Australia, England also got a severe beating in the series and Root's captaincy was under the scanner as was his continuing inability to convert fifties into hundreds. As a batsman, he was trying his best but it was evident that he seemed helpless as a leader. Under Root, England had a successful home season in 2018 though, drawing 1-1 with Pakistan first before going on to beat India 4-1. Heading to Sri Lanka later in the year, Root became the first English captain to win a series there since 2001 with his 125-run knock sealing the second Test and the series.

Australia went on to retain the 2019 Ashes after drawing the series 2-2 despite Stokes carrying England to a fabled 1-wicket win at Headingley. Root, who batted up the order at three, a matter which in itself was heavily critiqued at the time, went through the series without a century. England recorded a significant series win in South Africa in 2019-20, coming back to win 3-1 after losing the first game - a series win that Root went on to term as his 'proudest result' as a captain. Root’s best years with the willow were still ahead of him though and England’s 2021 tour to Sri Lanka was the beginning of a vibrant purple patch. After an extended break enforced by the pandemic, England toured the island nation for a 2-match Test series and Root was at his very best. Under testing and unfamiliar conditions, Root scored a gritty 228 in the first game and followed it up with a 186 in the second game to lead England through to a series win.

Root carried his form to Indian shores as he notched up another double-hundred in the first of four Tests at Chennai in 2021 - firmly establishing himself as one of the best batters to tour the subcontinent. Despite winning the first Test however, England were handed 3-1 drubbing. While Root’s rich vein of form with the bat continued, England found themselves trailing 2-1 when India turned up for a Test series at their shores later the same year (the final Test of the 5-match series was postponed due to Covid-19). Despite Root scoring a century in each of the first three games, England seemed hapless. At a time when the rest of England’s talent-rich batting order were woefully underwhelming, Root stood as a lone-ranger, scoring a mountain of runs - including six centuries and nearly 30% of all of England’s runs that year - keeping his side afloat when otherwise they would’ve already been at the ocean floor.

It wasn’t surprising then that a listless England team suffered a heavy 4-0 defeat in the 2021-22 Ashes down-under. Calls for Root to resign as captain only grew louder and despite the management continuing to persist with him for the following tour of the West Indies, the final straw had been placed and Root decided to relinquish the captaincy after the conclusion of the tour.

With pressure of captaincy no longer his, Root had a renewed enthusiasm for batting under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes’ ‘Bazball’ regime. Embracing the new memo wholeheartedly, Root added a previously unseen dimension to his batting and unleashed his large repertoire of shots fearlessly. In the 2nd Test at Lord’s against New Zealand in the home summer of 2022, Root equalled his former captain Alastair Cook’s record of the youngest batter to reach 10,000 Test runs, doing so at the age of 31 years and 157 days and became only the second Englishman to achieve the feat.

Despite first opting to enter the IPL Auction in 2018, it wouldn’t be until 2023 that Root would get his first gig after getting picked up for the Rajasthan Royals for his base price of INR 1 crore.

At the World Cups

The youngest player in the 15-member squad of England in the 2015 World Cup, Root was one of the two English batters to score more than 200 runs in the competition. In his first-ever World Cup, Root recorded a century at a 110+ strike-rate, but he ended up on the losing side against Sri Lanka. You could call Root an exception in a team that is flooded with aggressive-and-powerful batsmen. While Root may not be grabbing the headlines, he’s the glue around which the other batters play. This was exactly what he was required to do in the 2019 edition of the tournament. A 'new England' under Eoin Morgan had emerged and Root was to be a vital cog of it. Playing at home, England were firm favorites to lift their maiden World Cup trophy. That they eventually did win in a less than cavalier fashion will not take away the fact that they were clearly at the top of their game. So was Root, who ended the tournament as the fifth highest run-scorer, with 556 runs from 11 innings. Joe Root would be expected to do the same at the 2023 World Cup as well. Having had enough experience of playing in India, Root in the middle-order is just the right dose for this powerful English batting order. His off-spin will come in handy as well.