The Root of success

The dust has finally settled in the Basil De Oliveira trophy between England and South Africa, and England, bless them, have broken a 19 year old jinx to finally beat South Africa at home. A day no one thought would ever come. I mean South Africa (or Graeme Smith) has been responsible for the retirement of 3 English captains in the 2000s and England haven’t looked like beating them in nearly 2 decades. While the 3-1 score line might suggest a more one sided affair, the series was indeed tightly fought with each side wresting the upper hand. However in the end England had the personnel to see them through victorious and lift the home series curse, their spirits and the trophy.

The victory was largely on the back of some great team performances, however it was newly appointed Captain Joe Root who formed the back bone of the team and set the early tone for his sides dominance. Root emerged the highest run scorer for the series with 461 runs at 57.62 per inning. This was 131 runs more than the next best Jonny Bairstow.

Now for the statistical cricket connoisseur these numbers are as solid as Adamantium. The runs were racked up against South Africa, one of the best bowling attacks in the world, South Africa who came from behind to humiliate Australia at home only a few months ago and South Africa who have had a strangle hold on England in their own back yard. It was a gallant performance by a new captain at the helm, no arguments there. However, as we all know, while statistics are good to look at, they often hide the important bits. So let’s take a dive down the rabbit hole and see what else is there…that we might have missed.

Joe’s numbers are greatly boosted by the 190 he scored in the first game. Take that away and he has 271 in 7 innings at 38.71. Nothing much to write home about there. Looks pretty average doesn’t it. If we look deeper into the South African series, Root has four scores above 50 (190,78,50,52) and a 49. He has a consistent habit of getting a start, making a 50, look amazingly in touch when doing this and then getting out.

In 58 tests (107 innings), Root has 13 centuries and 30 half centuries. For a batsman of his caliber this is a staggeringly poor conversion rate. Compare this with his current contemporaries and the numbers speak for themselves.

Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith, the current crop of world beating batsman have all played a similar amount of cricket and roughly have the same amount of runs (except maybe Kohli) to Root. The biggest difference however is the ratio of half-centuries to hundreds. All 3 have a better and higher conversion rate than Root. This might be a reflection of their hunger for big runs or their focus on the task at hand. Joe Root has all these qualities and a bit more, yet he seems to have a knack of doing the hard work and getting out.

Now when you look at his overall numbers of 5191 runs at 54.07 you wouldn’t think there is a problem, and in all honesty I don’t think there is one either. However I do believe that this particular dent in Root’s armor might be an integral piece that’ll be the difference in England’s success in the next few years.

Root is one batsman and it is unfair to expect him to score all the runs. England had their previous golden period when Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell were simultaneously contributing with big runs, so it is not Root’s sole job to do all the run scoring. Even with his lackluster few innings against South Africa, England managed to post good totals thanks to Stokes, Bairstow and Ali. However given Cook has hit a bit of a slump in big run scoring and the brittle and uncertain nature of the English top order there is at least a bit more responsibility on Root to turn good days into great ones.

Over his short career Root has 30 half centuries, of which 17 are above 70 runs. If he converted at least 10 of those into hundred’s or bigger scores, he’d be sitting on 23 centuries, 20 half centuries, potentially 400-500 more test runs and an average of 60 (similar to Steven Smith). If Root knuckled down a bit more and converted those high half centuries into bigger scores, the England batting line up would look a bit more solid and it would lessen the pressure on Stokes, Bairstow and Ali. Also it would help them post bigger totals, especially when touring, and give something more for the bowling attack to work on. And don’t forget we are in an Ashes year.

This is by no means a criticism on Root, it’s merely reflection on just how great he can be. It doesn’t mean he should be the sole run scorer for England, it means when he gets a start and scores 70 he should convert that into a bigger score, and in the off chance he does fail, as it is prone to happen, others can step up in he absence. Root is a brilliant example of a modern day batsman, one capable of switching between all 3 formats at will and changing his approach when the team needs him.

In a country where batsman haven’t fared too well, in a country where in a hundred years only one test batsman has posted 10,000 runs and in a country where exuberant flair only came from overseas imports, Joe Root has carved a special niche as one of the world’s most promising young batsman. And now is the time for him to take it to the next level.