Joe Root doesn't play cricket the Bazball way- Alastair Cook

Former England captain Alastair Cook who led the English side towards their last Test series win here in India back in 2012, has backed Joe Root to have another dominant outing in the sub-continent country when the 5-match Test series begins from January 25 onwards.

Alastair Cook praised Joe Root for being a very good batter against spin and scoring a lot of runs in all of England’s previous sub-continent tours. It was under the captaincy of Cook that Joe Root earned his maiden Test cap in the final Test match of a 4-match series in 2012 at Nagpur.

In his first outing in the red-ball format, Root played out a brilliant knock of 73 runs in the 1st innings and provided a short glimpse of all the things to come from his bat in the future. His technical ability from head movement to feet movement to his head positioning to his bat lift, everything about him in the longest format is just classy.

Sometimes it seems as if Joe Root only plays textbook cricketing shots something that is built but that is not the case anymore as he has started playing the risky reverse sweep shots as well. He comes from a region in England (Yorkshire) where the belief is simple – play basic and orthodox style of cricket instead of the growing Bazball style of play.

So there are very less doubts about Joe Root’s technicality being the key driver of his success in international cricket which has seen him score 11,416 runs in the longest format at an average of 50.29, including 30 Tons and 60 half-centuries.

If we talk about his Test numbers in India then Joe Root has scored the most runs in India than in any other cricketing country in the world. He average here is nothing short of an exceptional 50.10 in 10 Tests, which is just marginally below his overall career average.

It took him 20 innings to score 952 runs here including 2 centuries and 5 half centuries with a best of 218 which he scored during England’s last tour of India in 2021.

Alastair Cook Hails Joe Root’s Risk-Free Batting

It will be fair to say that Alastair Cook knows the ability of Joe Root a bit too well as he debuted in Test under him only. While taking note of Root’s recent performances in the sub-continent, Cook appreciated his ability to score runs proactively and without taking many risks.

“He’s scored a lot of runs in the subcontinent in recent years in Sri Lanka and India, and he has done it by being very proactive, but in what seemed to be a very risk-free way.” – Cook said. 

Another former England captain Nasser Hussain also backed Joe Root to have a good series in India where Hussain asked him to bat with maturity instead of being ultra-aggressive and losing his wicket to the smart spinners of the Indian team.

Meanwhile, the 1st Test takes place in 3 days at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi stadium before the series heads to Vishakhapatnam (2-6 Feb), Rajkot (15-19 Feb), Ranchi (23-27 Feb) and Dharamshala (7-11 Mar).