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Opinion
Joe Root should not step down as English captain despite calls from the likes of Geoff Boycott and Ian Chappell to fall on his sword.
He should particularly ignore Boycott as Root has a vastly superior captaincy record to the former England opener.
He’s won 27, lost 24 and drawn eight of his 59 games in charge. Boycott was overlooked several times during his lengthy career for the captaincy and when handed the reins in 1978, he won just one of his four Tests, lost another and drew two.
Chappell, who captained Australia 30 times in the Test arena for 15 wins, five losses and 10 draws, believes all-rounder Ben Stokes seems a more natural leader and has been heavily critical of Root’s tactics.
Stokes is struggling to regain his world-class form with bat and ball after coming straight back into the Ashes after a lengthy break due to a finger injury and mental health concerns. The last thing he needs now or any time in the near future is the extra burden of captaincy.
Like Allan Border when Australian cricket was at its lowest ebb in the mid 1980s, Root is one of his team’s very few automatic selections.
If he can stick it out like Border did (despite threatening to quit several times) and build around him a reliable team, not necessarily the most talented one, then he can turn English fortunes around.
England’s tour has been a disaster from before the moment they made the worst possible start by conceding a wicket from the first ball of the series opener in Brisbane.
And Root should take a fair portion of the blame for their three straight defeats, particularly the bemusing bowling selections of omitting James Anderson from the first Test, Mark Wood from the second and Stuart Broad from the MCG mauling to forfeit any hope of regaining the Ashes.
Root’s form has been modest – making 253 runs with a half-century in each game but continuing his hundred hoodoo in Australia which now stretches to 23 innings over 12 Tests since 2013.
(Photo by Darrian Traynor – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
His average this series of 42.16 is well down on his career standard of 49.9 and made for an anti-climactic end to a prolific year in which he went close to breaking Pakistani maestro Mohammad Yousuf’s all-time record for runs in a calendar year of 1788 in 2006.
Root had to settle for third at 1708 in 15 matches, just behind Windies icon Sir Vivian Richards, who needed only 11 Tests for his 1710 in 1976.
He is yet another example of an English captain struggling for runs Down Under after being targeted by the Australian bowling attack.
No Englishman in Ashes history has scored more than 500 runs as skipper in an away series – the closest was Ted Dexter way back in 1962-63 when he compiled 481 at 48.1 with a highest score just one shy of an elusive century.
The next best was Graham Gooch during his late-career renaissance in 1990-91. He missed the first Test with Allan Lamb filling in and managing just 32 and 14. Gooch then rattled off 426 runs in four Tests at 53.25, including a ton and four half-centuries, to be second leading run scorer for the series behind Australia’s David Boon (530).
He was followed by Mike Atherton four years later who began his constant torment at the hands of Glenn McGrath in making 47 at 40.70 with a highest of 88.
Alec Stewart in 1998-99 managed a century but did not much else as he racked up 316 at 35.11 while Nasser Hussein failed to crack triple figures on the next tour as he tallied 382 at 38.2 but at least outpointed opposite number Steve Waugh’s 305 at 38.12.
The same could not be said for Andrew Flintoff in the 2006-07 whitewash with his 254 at 28.22 dwarfed by Australian skipper Ricky Ponting’s 576 at 82.28, including two tons.
Even when England won their only series in Australia in the past 35 years, in 2010-11, captain Andrew Strauss was contained to 307 runs at 43.85 and was eighth overall for scorers among both teams but his opening partner Alastair Cook was unstoppable with three centuries along his 766 runs.
Cook came back to Terra Australis with a thud four years later with 246 at 24.6 with a best of just 72.
Root is the leading run-scorer in the 2021-22 Ashes and should surpass his tally from his previous tour as captain when he managed only 378 at a decent average of 47.25 but was well behind local skipper Steve Smith’s output of 687, including three hundreds.