Ashes 2021-22: Geoffrey Boycott Asks Joe Root To Give Up England Test Captaincy

Former England player Geoffrey Boycott asked Joe Root to step down from England’s Test captaincy after a humiliating 3-0 defeat in the Ashes.

England were thumped by Australia on Tuesday by an inning and 14 runs in the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG.

Debutant Scott Boland, who is the local player of Melbourne, scripted remarkable figures of six wickets for seven runs.

England were bundled up for 68 inside the first session as Australia clinched the series 3-0 to retain the Ashes.

Joe Root was England’s top-scorer with 28 and despite him staying firm on the crease, the wickets kept tumbling from the other end. Mitchell Starc (3/29) played a great hand to Boland in routing England for another misery total.

Joe Root’s captaincy lacks imagination: Geoffrey Boycott

Boycott slammed Root for his lack of imagination as a leader and asked him to resign from the role.

“Now Australia are 3-0 up and the Ashes have gone, will Root please stop saying Australia are not much better than us? I don’t mind him living in cuckoo land but stop trying to kid us. If he really believes what he says then maybe it is time he gave up the captaincy of the England cricket team,” Boycott wrote in his column for The Telegraph.

“Joe’s captaincy lacks imagination. His team selection and decision making has been staggeringly off the mark.

“Many of us are tired of these interviews where Joe says England will learn from a bad day or Joe says he expects a response after a poor performance. We have had enough of this rubbish. Stop treating us ex-players and cricket supporters as idiots,” he further mentioned.

England are very ordinary: Geoffrey Boycott

Root scored 1708 runs from 15 Test matches at an average of 61 with four fifty-plus scores and six hundreds. The second highest runs from England in this calendar year is Rory Burns with 530 runs, which tells how much the team relied upon Root to make runs.

Boycott believes England doesn’t perform with collective efforts and rather depend upon individual brilliance in different departments.

“The facts are England are very ordinary with most of their success depending on Joe or Stokes batting well, or Broad and Anderson bowling well on English-type seaming pitches,” Boycott wrote.

Root took over England’s Test captaincy from Alastair Cook after the latter stepped down from the role owing to a poor show in India in 2016.

Root has now stood as England’s Test skipper in 59 matches and won 27 out of them. This is his third Ashes series since he led the Three Lions in the 2017/18 tour in Down Under. Boycott believes a change in captaincy will bring better performance in the England side.

“It’s every cricketer’s dream to captain England and Joe has had 59 Test matches to mould and stamp his authority on this set of players. He has had 13 Tests against Australia with only two wins and nine losses,” Boycott mentioned.

“Nobody would want to give up the captaincy, but it is not about Joe – it is about getting guys to perform better,” he further explained.

England will play against Australia in the fourth Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG), the match starts on January 5.

Also Read: Ashes 2021-22: Australia Blew Us Away Last Night, Admits Joe Root