"Joe Root is not a Bazballer" - Phil Tufnell's striking verdict on England star

Former England spinner Phil Tufnell, who was also known as the Bad Boy of English cricket during the 1990s, criticized top-order batsman Joe Root for unnecessarily trying to adopt the Bazball style of batting, a term that has been coined and also included in the dictionary ever since Brendon McCullum took over as the head coach and Ben Stokes took over as the captain of the Three Lions’ Test team.

While most of the batters in the team like Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, and Ollie Pope among others have excelled in using this particular batting strategy to their aid, England veteran and their most experienced batter in Indian conditions, Joe Root has evidently struggled to find rhythm and score runs under the Bazball regime, which is in its first-ever implementation over here.

For a fact, Joe Root was expected to play a key role in the 5-match Test series but he hasn’t been able to showcase even 1% of his class which actually helped him amass over 11,000 runs in the longest format. And it is really agonizing to see how a batter like him is experiencing such a lean patch in his career right after the approach was changed from old-school Test cricket to the McCullum school of thought. 

In the 3rd Test, after India posted 445 in the 1st innings and Ben Duckett responded with a century to aggressively initiate the 2nd innings, Joe Root came out to bat after the dismissals of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope at a crucial juncture of the match. He had a good approach early on before stumps were called on day 2 with England scoring 207 runs. 

However, all of that changed as soon as day 3 began. vice-captain and India’s lead pacer Jasprit Bumrah was constantly trying to unsettle Joe Root by pitching the ball outside off, asking and inviting him to go for drives and cuts. But Root knew Bumrah’s gameplan and was leaving those types of deliveries very well until the brain fade moment occurred. 

In a bid to replicate the unconventional shots his fellow teammates were playing, Root out of nowhere tried to play the reverse scoop shot against a delivery that was pitched high and around off. A very stupid shot selection, let alone the execution as the ball went straight to the hands of second slip fielder Yashasvi Jaiswal. With that, Joe Root now has scores of 29, 2, 5, 16, and 28 out of his 5 innings in Hyderabad, Vizag, and Rajkot.

“He’s been sucked into a game that” – Tufnell asks Joe Root to get back to his basics

While speaking to BBC Sports earlier today, Phil Tufnell claimed that Joe Root has been sucked into a style of play that is not suitable for everyone, especially in Root’s cause to say the least.

“Joe Root is not a Bazballer. He’s a fabulous player but he’s been sucked into a game that doesn’t suit everyone, and it doesn’t suit Joe. Reverse sweeping, ten minutes into day three to the best seam bowler in the world fraught with danger – come on.” – Tufnell said via BBC Sports.