Smart of Joe to go!

England batting star Root saved himself the kind of ignominy past captains endured by quitting before being sacked as skipper after the West Indies Test series

Joe Root’s decision to relieve himself from the England captaincy hasn’t been followed by source-based stories of him getting the sack.
Doubtless, though, the Yorkshireman was under severe scrutiny especially after the series loss in the West Indies. Everyone and anyone in English cricket seemed to be calling for his head before he decided enough was enough.

I’m reminded of what author Christopher Douglas wrote of Douglas Jardine in his 1984 book on the Bodyline controversy-entrenched England captain. In the chapter (The Stigma Borne with Dignity) which dwelled on Jardine’s retirement from the game after the 1933-34 tour of India, Douglas wrote: “Having been the object of such intense public scrutiny for so long, Jardine must have felt rather like a star turn leaving the stage to the sound of his own footsteps.”

Statistically, Root won more than he lost under the captain’s hat but by only Test (won 27, lost 26) but it shouldn’t be forgotten that he led in the time of a pandemic which tested everybody and the sides he led were often ordinary.

Though he had the luxury of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, they didn’t always play as a pair and we can never be sure if Root was supportive of that strange rest policy which cropped up from time to time. Cricket followers couldn’t believe that England would go into the first Test of an Ashes series (Brisbane 2021) without Anderson and Broad. And it came as no surprise to see Australia giving them a nine-wicket thrashing.

Two heavy Ashes series losses (2017-18 and 2021-22) on Australian soil would have left Root deeply scarred, but he should also enjoy some level of satisfaction in helping Engalnd continue to deny Australia of an Ashes series win on English soil since 2001.

Root’s captaincy exit which came after Virat Kohli’s call to quit the captaincy in January now means that India and England will not have the same captains in the pending fifth Test of last summer’s Pataudi Trophy series to be held at Edgbaston in July.

One marvelled at the fact that the cares of captaincy didn’t affect Root’s method of getting runs for his side. He scored two hundreds in his last three Tests as captain in the Caribbean. In the four Tests against India last year, his scores were 64, 109, 180 not out, 33, 121, 21 and 36. If anyone deserves to complete 10,000 Test runs, which he is 111 shy of, it is Root.

Back to the fact that he didn’t allow the selectors to sack him as captain. Some of the biggest names in English cricket have had to undergo that embarrassment and Root will be happy that he himself dictated his fate.

David Gower, that elegant batsman and dignified leader, had returned to the Lord’s dressing room from his post-match media duties after losing the opening Test of 1986 series, when he was told by former captain and chief selector Peter May that he would no longer lead England.
This was the same Gower who led England to an overseas Test series win against India in 1985 which of course came in between two whitewashes inflicted by the West Indies.

Mike Gatting, who succeeded Gower, lost his job due to an alleged affair with a barmaid in 1988. He also caused many English cricket die-hard supporters to cringe when he argued with Pakistan umpire Shakoor Rana not long before the barmaid scandal.

Gatting was a fine skipper and that great success England enjoyed in the 1986-87 Australian summer (wins in the Test series, ODI triangular and Perth Challenge) was no fluke. Peter Roebuck, the departed accomplished writer, wrote in Ashes to Ashes: “Perhaps the clue to this series, as to so many others, lay in the relationship between [Ian] Botham and his captain. Gatting demanded that Botham work hard in the nets from the start of the tour. He treated him like any other player, and this time Botham’s genius was incorporated into the team effort, rather than living independently of it.”

Talking of Botham, the great all-rounder had good reason to believe that he resigned and was not sacked as England captain. In Head On, he wrote about telling his teammates that he had decided to quit as captain after the second Test of the 1981 Ashes ended in a draw. And after chief selector Alec Bedser accepted his resignation, Bedser announced to the media that Botham had resigned but, “we were going to sack him anyway.”

Something similar happened in 1975 when Mike Denness’s head was on the chopping block after he led an England team that succumbed to an innings defeat to old enemy Australia at Birmingham. Denness wrote in I Declare: “I was sacked as captain of England - that is the way it looked to the cricketing public – but before that announcement was made I had already decided, on the second morning of the first Test at Edgbaston, that I would resign. It was not because I knew what was coming, it was because I felt, rightly or wrongly, that I had been knifed in the back,” wrote Denness, who had led England to a devastating Ashes campaign in 1974-75.

If at all Root has read about such captaincy stories, he’d probably feel less mortified.

How should the world remember Root as captain of his country? Yes, that he didn’t appear astute would come into it, but what England all-rounder-turned-journalist Vic Marks wrote in The Guardian late last month, before Root made his decision, seemed apt: “He is not the worst captain we have ever had. Nor the best. He is a thoroughly decent, well‑respected leader, genuinely devoted to the game and, by a terrifying margin, England’s best batter.”

Indeed!

mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello

Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper

"Exciting news! Mid-day is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!