Former English Test Captain, Joe Root is enjoying the brand of play that the current captain-coach duo Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum are building for England. McCullum has revamped the English test playing technique and approach. “Sheer aggression” is what the world is now perceiving English test cricket as. The brand has a specific name designated to it, “Bazball” for McCullum’s nickname. However, not by McCullum or the team but by the spectators who noted the drastic change.
Ben Stokes took over the test captaincy after Joe Root gave up the position to focus solely on his game. Root then went on to triumph the peak as he scored 10,000 runs in the format. And English test cricket has simultaneously reached its peak marching over strong sides like India, New Zealand and recently South Africa.
Joe Root explains his enjoyment of playing tests currently
Can’t wait for the encore 🤟🏻 pic.twitter.com/LDBaleEUWL
— Joe Root (@root66) September 12, 2022
And Root, now off the skipper responsibility is in awe of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have ensued for England. “I’ve never had more fun playing professional cricket,” said Root. “Honestly, it is hard to put into words. You turn up every day and you’re very excited about what’s going to happen. It’s the unknown.”
“It’s quite a strange feeling to have played 120-odd games still to have that feeling when you turn up every day. This is a really good place to be,” he added. “Keeps you very hungry and motivated. You can bounce off the energy of everybody else who is in the same mindset.”
Root is enjoying playing under Stokes and McCullum. To explain the changes they’ve brought to the approach in the game, he recounted a specific event. Moreover, he also explained that in his perception, the way England’s taking on this format is eerily similar to white-ball cricket. And in his perception, there’s nothing to complain about this transformation.
“There was a moment at Trent Bridge when me and Zak Crawley sat down in that last session with a crossword. We did one answer and within three overs, we’d put the book down and couldn’t take our eyes off it. It was like watching a highlights reel of a T20 game, never mind a Test match. That was remarkable.”
“Some of the things we’d never seen before in Test cricket happened in a short space of time. It’s nice to know what we’re capable of. Almost feels like – I hate drawing the comparison, but there is a small feeling of what it was like when we started to make those really big scores in the white-ball team.”
Read More
“That’s the exciting thing – what is the limit, how far can we go? You look at what that team has achieved over a period of time. I know it is early days and a lot of different elements to Test cricket, compared to the white-ball format, but it is very exciting that there is the same sort of vibe around, in my mind anyway,” Root said.
“Not just one-trick pony,” exclaims Root
The Stokes/McCullum era has started with a strong summer 🤙#ENGvSA pic.twitter.com/jo7EG0e27T
— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) September 12, 2022
Joe Root enunciated England’s newly found dominance in test cricket. He counted that England has emerged as the winner in six competitions out of the seven they’ve played this year. Root attributed that such performances couldn’t be stated as a fluke or mere coincidence.
Under McCullum, England has chased down par 250 runs in just one day, not once but numerous times to emerge victorious in tests. And that’s where the aggressive approach of their team shines bright for everyone to take notice.
“We’re not just a one-trick pony,” he said. “There’s always going to be periods in Test cricket that you have to manage well and smartly. We’ve not got it right every time this summer, but we’ve got it right more often than not and that’s why we’re sat here with six out of seven,” he said. “We’re definitely not the finished article but to see the strides we’ve made in such a short space of time has been really a breath of fresh air,” he added.
