Before we try and consider how Ben Stokes will get on as England Captain, let’s consider how Joe Root got on in the job. It is not that easy to give a definitive answer – eventually, it comes down to a matter of opinion. Mine is that, irrespective of many challenges, and some were self-inflicated, Root always promised, but did not deliver enough as Captain. It goes without saying that Root the batter is a different story.
The ambassador
Firstly, one overwhelming positive. It sounds a bit ‘corny’ perhaps, but Root has been an amazing role model. When my son asks who he should watch, I say Joe Root. I cannot remember such a positve example being set by an English cricketer. In my lifetime, perhaps Moeen Ali or a young David Gower (pre Tiger-moth) could stake a claim – Ali for the way he has shared his faith, Gower for the way he played the game. But Root has done it consistently, while his team has been battered despite his endless runs. It would have been easy to get a bit cross in those difficult interviews with Gower in Australia, but he never did. He backed his players, he backed the various initiatives of the ECB relating to racisim and inclusivity. He handled the Ollie Robinson fiasco so well – even having fronted up to that campaign he also treated Robinson fiarly and did not unduly criticise him.
His rebuke to Shannon Gabriel in 2019 will live long in the memory for many of us. Root consistently plays the game the right way. Whilst nobody is in doubt about any of this, I have often wondered with Root if he was just a bit too nice for Captaincy. I think this was the issue for Gower at times. Being a ‘good bloke’ is not enough.
The good news is that he can continue to do all this despite no longer being in charge. He can lead by example, and people will follow. Again he can take the lead from Michael Atherton, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain and Sir Alastair Cook, who all provided vital support for Stewart, Hussain Michael Vaughan and Root repectively when playing on after being the Captain.
The statistics are not helpful.
We can dismiss the number of wins and losses as a pointless statistic. Let’s face it, Root won more games than most because he Captained more games than most. We could consider win percentage, where Steve Waugh is the winner – but whatever the merits of Waugh as a Captain, it was pretty hard to lose too many games with that Australian Team.
My next tack was to consider Draws. I do think a major weakness of modern International Cricket is the absence of Draws – it shows a lack of determination, and some of this comes from the Captaincy. When it comes to determination, Atherton managed to come out of 37% of his games with a draw compared to Roots 17%. But any attempt to utilise that Statistic fails too – Waugh only achieved 12% – and that is not for a lack of grit, more because he won so many games.
What we can do is try and compare Root’s record with some of those England Captains who were not blessed with the resources that were available to Vaughan and Sir Andrew Strauss, or Mike Brearley for that matter. Root did have some world class players available, but rather like the 1990s, he had to carry too many passengers. Atherton and Hussain tried to make England ‘hard to beat’, and a justifiable criticism of England in 2021 was that they were easy to beat, so here we will focus on loss ratio. Atherton lost almost 39% of his games, Hussain 33% and Graham Gooch, another England Captain lacking resources, 35%. Root lost 40% of his games – not much different to Atherton who many considered to be an good Captain.
I remember hearing David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd talking about Atherton the Captain – he described him as a great Captain, if only he had had the players. And of course, that has also been an issue for poor old Joe – a Captain can only be as good as his players.
Whilst a Captain needs to win some games, we do have to look at Root’s batting, which, outside of Australia at least, has been out of this world. As Captain Rooot scored over 5,000 runs at an average of over 45. For England in modern times, only Gooch came close to that record as a Captain – his batting got better when leading. I think Root’s batting also got better as Captain – or certainly he became more determined to get the really big scores, after his relatively lean patch around 2019 (relative being the key word here). In 2022 it felt as if the more the Captaincy dragged him down, the better he batted.
Where both Gooch and Root both failed was Australia, where they both have moderate records. The Aussies know how to sort a Captain out – just ask Atherton. One thing that sets Strauss and Mike Gatting appart is that they won that Ashes away as Captain (and they only got one chance). It is no coincidence that both Strauss and Gatting scored important centuries in the series they won down under. Let’s hope Root gets one more chance to conquer Australia.
Tactically?
And I am sorry to say that this is where things go downhill. I know that David Lloyd said that a Captain is only as good as his players, and he is right. But my word, some poor decisions have been made on Root’s watch.
Root rarely had his best players over recent years, and even when he did have England’s best ever bowlers available he did not manage them well, or even select them at times. Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad have clearly been a challenge for Root. Add in the white ball focus and Covid and it cannot be doubted that Root was unfortunate in his timing. Cook was not a great Captain either, so Root lacked a strong leadership role model in the team. If all this was not enough, the hapless ECB have really offered little support.
Yes, we must accept these mitigating factors, but we must also accept that basic errors have been made. You only need to look at recent Ashes series and the West Indies tour for those decisions to jump out. Selection has consistently been awful, and if you want to put some of that blame for that down to Chris Silverwood, Root is entirely responsible for some poor decisions the toss.
Worse, Root also lacked presence on the field. Often, it was not clear who was in charge. The game was allowed to drift too often, when a quick bowling change was needed or a field change. Hussain was full of emotion on the field, and took it too far at times, but I would rather Captains err that way than become too passive. At times, Root needed to ‘bang heads together’. Equally, Root often lacked patience – none more so than when England worked so hard to successfully snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against India at Lords. That hour at Lords in 2021 was one of the worst passages of Test Match Cricket I have ever seen, and Root did nothing to change it. When a good team wins it is one thing, but on that occasion India were gifted a win. What was needed on that dreadful day of cricket was dicipline, not bouncers.
A further observation is that England have been obsessed with this concept of a ‘brand’ of cricket in the last few years. In Root’s early years the ‘brand’ was aggression. It resulted in that game against West Indies at Headlingly in 2017 being thrown away, but, retrospectively, perhaps he should have stuck with this method, as the best players available were aggressive ones. Later, the plan was to be attritional – something that worked for Strauss, but he regularly had 500 on the board combined with a world class spinner.
The problem with having a pre-determined approach is a loss of flexability. At times, it has felt like Root has been playing yesterdays’s game with tomorrow’s plan. For example, at Brisbane last year England were so fixated with a plan for the second game at Adelaide, they picked the wrong bowling attack. Then at Adelaide they picked the bowlers they should have picked at Brisbane. Constantly, England were focussed on ‘what was next’, forgetting about what was right in front of them.
Summary?
For me, things just did not work for Root as Captain. He failed to manage his key assets (Anderson, Broad, Jofra Archer and Stokes). His longevity is impressive, but in other eras Root would have been gone in 2018 or 2019, and certainly he should have been encouraged to resign after the 2021/2 Ashes. One could aos argue that longevity has contributed to the lack of replacement candidates for the Captaincy. In 2019, Broad would have been a good choice, but by 2022 it felt too late.
On the good days Root had a gameplan, and on the occasions he could stick to the plan he was successful. For example, he was successful in Sri Lanka and South Africa when big scores were made. In the home summer of 2020 it also felt like Root made lots of good decisions, particularly at Old Trafford against Pakistan.
But when things when wrong for Root, they went massively wrong. It is easy to look at the batting collapses, but also one cannot ignore the awful sessions with the ball when games of cricket were handed to the oppoition. Some might wish to point out that it was good teams that beat England in 2021, but I do not think they were as good as England made them look. And Root also lost two series away to the West Indies.
His professionalism, courtesy and dignity are greatly to be admired. His class as a person and a batter is obvious for all to see, but I never felt Captaincy sat comfortably on Joe Root’s shoulders. Without doubt, it was time for a change.
Cricketed 