CHENNAI: During an English summer where batting has been hard work for most players, Joe Root is breathing a different air. In three Tests against an excellent Indian attack in the ongoing series, the England captain’s numbers have been Bradmanesque: 507 runs with three centuries at an average of 126.75.
His graph has been on a remarkable upward trajectory ever since the start of 2021, with 11 Tests already fetching him 1398 runs including two double centuries.
Now, it’s not as though Root wasn’t making runs earlier. He has been England’s best batsman for quite a few years now and plays most of his cricket in arguably the toughest batting conditions in the world. But in 2019, for instance, his average was a steady 37 from 12 Tests with just two centuries.
Last year, he couldn’t cross the three-figure mark even once in 13 innings, a stark contrast from the six centuries that he has racked up this year. The turnaround started on the dusty, spin-friendly surfaces of the subcontinent in January, with his first innings itself being a match-winning 228 against Sri Lanka in Galle. Scores of 186 against Sri Lanka and 218 against India followed in his next two Tests, and it eventually needed a few raging turners for Root’s brilliance to be countered.
Having done well over their winter tours, the start of the English summer posed an equally daunting challenge for Root. These are familiar conditions for Root, but – before this series – he was averaging only 32.79 in England over the last three years. What has changed now then?
According to Kevin Sharp, one of Root’s earliest coaches at Yorkshire, a slight change in his trigger movement is helping him stay more balanced at the crease. There were pointers on the television broadcast during the third Test against India of the tweak that Sharp is talking about. While Root used to move back and across to off-stump earlier — which used to occasionally lead to him falling over and made him an lbw candidate — he is now staying more on middle-stump by not moving his back leg across.
“When he goes across a bit too far, he falls over a bit. That's when he was kind of not getting it right. His back foot was transferring a bit further than he wanted and his front foot came across as well. That could have affected his balance. He is now definitely more balanced at the crease. This has been something that has always been very important to him. Through the years, he has tried different movements. He needs a pre-delivery movement because that works for him,” Sharp breaks down Root’s set-up at the crease.
Another notable change recently has been Root’s conversion rate. Out of his seven fifty-plus scores this year, six of them have been centuries. Even now, the fact that only 23 of his 73 fifty-plus scores are hundreds is unlikely to sit well with the 30-year-old. Sharp, who is now head of coach and player development at Worcestershire, says that his middling conversion rate was definitely irking Root.
“He was getting annoyed by it. He did a virtual session with Worcestershire’s youngsters last November where I interviewed him for an hour,” Sharp recalled. “I asked him, ‘Tell me, how do you make a hundred?' He replied saying, ‘You are asking the wrong person.’ It was tongue-in-cheek. Of course, he was frustrated that he was not converting but he was always determined at correcting that. When he gets in now, it’s a big one invariably.”