Joe Root, Quiet Menace & the Art of Staying

Pakistan had finally uprooted Joe Root.

Mohammad Ali had bowled him for 20. England were chasing only 130 at Edgbaston, but both openers had already disappeared in Mohammad Abbas’s first over. Another wicket, another opening. After three Tests of punishment, Pakistan had found something to get excited about.

Except Ali had overstepped.

Root stayed. By the finish, he had 62, England had an eight-wicket victory, and Pakistan had another afternoon to file under opportunities lost. The reprieve had become expensive.

Indian supporters know this particular discomfort. You see the chance. You imagine the dressing-room door closing behind him. Then you look up some time later and he is still there, finding runs in places your captain thought he had covered.

Root’s latest fifty took him past Sachin Tendulkar: 69 Test half-centuries to 68. Another small ceremony in a career increasingly crowded with them.

Four dismissals. All lbw

Yet the more revealing number from this series was four

Four dismissals. All lbw. Even as England marched towards a clean sweep, their finest batter was wrestling with a recurring weakness. “Their greatest player is struggling with one specific type of dismissal: lbw,” Nasser Hussain observed on Sky Sports. The pattern persisted despite an adjustment.

There is the interesting Root: vulnerable enough for a bowler to believe, accomplished enough to make that belief costly.

His longevity has required him to keep interfering with his own success. A change of movement. A different scoring option. A decision to leave a job. Now, the decision to take it back.

The boy who became this unusually durable nuisance grew up with cricket almost literally in his hands. His father, Matt, made him a tiny bat; a family photograph shows Joe holding it at two days old. At Sheffield Collegiate, where Michael Vaughan had also developed, the game supplied family, company and ambition. At 11, Root gave up a stint at Nottingham Forest’s academy because it interfered with Sunday nets.

One club memory deserves to survive all the international footage. Root was in the nineties, approaching his first hundred in men’s cricket, when an older partner ran him out. Club official Dave Seal remembered disappointment without a tantrum, and no abuse for the man who had cost him the milestone.

That does not explain a batting average. It does suggest an early ability to keep a disappointment from swallowing the afternoon.

India met him in Nagpur in December 2012: 21 years old, 73 runs, 229 deliveries. England were trying to secure a series victory. Root occupied the crease as though he had understood the assignment before receiving his cap. The debut established a relationship that India has spent years trying to terminate.

But his place soon became less secure. England dropped him for the final Ashes Test in Sydney in January 2014, amid the wreckage of a 5-0 defeat. The bright young thing had become surplus to requirements before the tour was over.

On his return to Test cricket that June, he made an unbeaten double-century against Sri Lanka at Lord’s. Later that summer came 154 not out and 149 not out against India. The recovery was substantial; the selection wound was real. England’s career chronology places them only months apart.

Root’s gift is easy to flatten into a word like “consistency”. It makes the runs sound automatic. His career has involved rather more maintenance.

He went through 2020 without a Test hundred. In 2021, he scored six and accumulated 1,708 runs, a calendar-year total exceeded only by Mohammad Yousuf and Viv Richards. The lean year preceded an extraordinary surge.

Behind it was work less photogenic than raising a bat. His early coach Kevin Sharp identified a smaller movement across the crease, helping Root remain balanced instead of falling across his stumps. Better balance gave him more control over where the ball went. Sharp’s explanation takes greatness out of the clouds and puts it back between the feet.

For India, the difficulty is that Root offers so many ways of being expensive. Close off a boundary and the single keeps the innings moving. Bring the field in and another gap becomes available. Against spin, movement and the sweep ask the bowler to defend different lengths and areas. A spell can feel respectable while the partnership quietly escapes.

By July 2025, he had become the first batter to pass 3,000 Test runs against India. Later that month, in Manchester, he overtook Ricky Ponting to stand second on the all-time Test run list. India had become both a favourite opponent and the witness to his ascent.

Yet India also supplied a sharp reminder of how foolish even Root can look.

Rajkot, February 2024. Jasprit Bumrah bowling. Root attempted the reverse scoop and offered a catch to second slip. England eventually lost by 434 runs. A shot that advertised invention became an exhibit in the prosecution of Bazball. The dismissal invited an obvious demand: please go back to being Joe Root.

In Ranchi, he made 122 not out, helping lift England from 112 for five to 353. Here was the rescue his critics recognised. But Root resisted the idea that the experiment itself had been a betrayal.

“If you don't try to get better and find different ways of scoring runs, you'll get found out,” he said. His explanation matters more than a tidy redemption story.

The dependable Root and the experimenting Root share a purpose. He changes because opponents are trying to make his existing game obsolete. The judgement lies in choosing the moment. Rajkot exposed the cost of getting that wrong; Ranchi demonstrated that he still possessed the patience to repair an innings.

Captaincy has been harder to repair

His first spell produced 27 Test wins, then England’s record, and series victories in South Africa and Sri Lanka. It also ended after one victory in 17 matches. Australia had beaten England 4-0; West Indies then won 1-0. The achievements and the exhausted finish belong in the same assessment.

Remember that 1,708-run year. He was already captain. The easy theory that leadership simply stopped him batting collapses against his own scorebook. He could perform magnificently while the job was becoming personally intolerable. England’s dependence on his runs made that distinction dangerously easy to miss.

After resigning in 2022, he made 115 not out to beat New Zealand at Lord’s. Then came the admission: “It had become a very unhealthy relationship, to be honest - the captaincy and me.” Root described the burden after helping his successor win.

There was something braver in that disclosure than in another claim to relish pressure. The man who so often looked untroubled had reached a limit.

His public decency has had similarly revealing tests. In St Lucia in 2019, the stump microphones caught his response to Shannon Gabriel: “There’s nothing wrong with being gay.” A competitive exchange had crossed a line, and Root challenged it. Gabriel later apologised and received a four-match ODI suspension. The incident gave substance to the admiration.

Yorkshire’s racism scandal complicated that reputation. Root said he could not recall witnessing racism at the club; former teammate Azeem Rafiq expressed hurt at his response. Root subsequently acknowledged the need for further learning. Rafiq’s reaction and Root’s position resist a spotless portrait.

Calling someone a gentleman carries little weight if it merely means he is pleasant when winning. Root has shown the courage to intervene. He has also faced questions about what he failed to recognise closer to home. Both experiences belong to the man England has asked to lead again.

At 35, following Ben Stokes’ retirement, he has accepted a second term, with Stephen Fleming appointed head coach. Root cited the opportunity to work with Fleming as a major reason for returning. The new partnership offers a different arrangement around a familiar captain.

That arrangement is crucial. Root has demonstrated that he can endure. England now needs to demonstrate that endurance is not its entire leadership plan. Who shares the decisions? Who notices when the responsibility follows him home? How much energy remains for solving the next lbw problem?

A 3-0 win over this Pakistan side gives the second term a welcome start. It cannot answer those questions. England’s first series victory in 19 months came with interim coach Marcus Trescothick still overseeing the team; Fleming’s work lies ahead. The result restores some confidence without settling the future.

At Edgbaston, the immediate business ended with Root embracing Razaullah, Pakistan’s young debutant, after the winning run. A small gesture, away from the milestones.

The youngster had dismissed him in the first innings. Pakistan had nearly removed him again in the second. Root finished unbeaten anyway. Opponents keep searching for a way through. Root keeps searching for the adjustment that makes them start again.

England’s task is to ensure its captain gets to leave the crease sometimes, even when he is home.