The appointment of Joe Root as captain of England’s Men’s Test team in succession to Ben Stokes has had a generally slightly underwhelming response. Nobody disputes Root’s status as a genuinely great player, maybe England’s greatest batter [Ed: Discuss]. He has already captained England in more matches than anyone else, but how good a captain was he?
This may simply be part of the feeling of “going back”. In life generally there is often a reluctance to go back, however good whatever it is you are thinking of going back to seemed at the time, whether it be a job, a home, a relationship or whatever. Move on, press forward, is the frequent counsel. Moving on, in the case of English Test cricket, is not so straightforward. Harry Brook, the only plausible candidate, has his hands full as captain of both white ball formats, and is bound to be focussing on the 50-over World Cup in South Africa in 2027. In that role he seems to be working well with white ball coach Brendon McCullum. Brook’s recent Test match record has been below par – he still averages well over fifty which is phenomenal – and he needs to work on this.
Everybody goes on about how bad England were when McCullum and Stokes took over in the summer of 2022. It is true that Root’s side had a very poor run and gave some embarrassing performances, particularly against New Zealand at home in 2021 and the West Indies away in 2021-22 (we can deal with India and Australia later). The contrast in the summer of 2022 was startling; Root himself, typically, said it showed what a difference it made to have a captain who knew what he was doing.
Context is everything and Root had had to contend with two factors that no other England captain had ever been faced with; both, as it happened, at least partly (in one case) preceded the notorious final run of seventeen matches with only one win. The first was the pandemic. It is difficult to exaggerate the impact of COVID generally – that history is yet to be written – but sport, amateur and professional, certainly suffered hugely. England did as much as any country, much more than Australia, for instance, to keep cricket going, and Root, as captain, bore an immense burden. This carried on until his second trip as captain in Australia. The second factor was the fact that, after the calamitous World Cup campaign of 2015, and the appointments of Trevor Bayliss as coach and Eoin Morgan as white-ball captain, England’s priorities had changed: the focus now was on the 2019 World Cup, to be staged in England. Given the result, it is not easy to criticise that decision. But the eye was taken off the ball where Test cricket was concerned and Root as captain again bore the brunt.
England’s two most successful captains in terms of win percentages, of those who have captained in at least 25 Tests, have been Mike Brearley (58.08) and Stokes (54.54). Root is down with the also-rans at 41.53. As was noted earlier, England won only one Test in Root’s last 17 matches in charge. If you take Root’s captaincy, from the start, in 2017, to the end of the Sri Lanka tour in 2020-21, he had a win percentage of 54.35, putting him just behind Stokes.
Like his predecessor, Alastair Cook, Root never lost a home series comprising three or more Tests. Not many England captains can say that. After this year’s series against New Zealand, Stokes can’t say it, although of course Root was stand-in captain for the second Test. Andrew Strauss, Michael Vaughan and Ray Illingworth, all lauded leaders, lost home series of three games or more. Like Stokes, Root drew an enthralling home Ashes series (his debt to Stokes as a player was indisputable). He beat South Africa away and twice whitewashed Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, no easy task.
As with Stokes, the problem areas are India, away, and Australia, Down Under. Dealing with Australia first, Root, uniquely in modern times, led England in Australia twice, both series being lost 4-0 (an improvement on the two previous efforts, 5-0, under Cook and Andrew Flintoff). The first series, in 2017-18, was scuppered before it started by the de-selection of Stokes due to the Bristol shenanigans. The second, in 2021-22, was dominated by COVID and should never have happened. Stokes’ series, in 2025-26, ended up 4-1, which sounds better, sort of, but was actually much worse. The only bright spots were Root’s two centuries and Jacob Bethell. The point about Root’s earlier tours was that nobody actually expected England to win. It was very different in 2025-26.
In 2018 India toured England under Virat Kohli, and played five Tests; Root’s England won four of them. Root led England on a return trip after the second whitewash of Sri Lanka in 2020-21. England won the first Test at Chennai, Root top-scoring in both innings with 218 and 40. The remaining three games were played on raging turners and India won them all, R Ashwin and Akshar Patel sharing 59 wickets in the series; Root himself took five for eight at Ahmedabad. Stokes’ side lost 4-1 in 2023-24. Ashwin was again the leading wicket-taker but paceman Jasprit Bumrah took 19 wickets and the only sense in which the odds were stacked against England was that India seemed a much better side. Conditions though clearly are critical. India came to England in 2021 facing a team led by Root, but with the final Test held over into the Bazball era of 2022 because of COVID, and in 2025 facing a side led by Stokes. Both series contained some thrilling cricket and both were drawn.
Nobody ever said Root was a master tactician, or had Stokes’ uncanny ability to read, and at times direct the course of, a cricket match. Nor does he have Brearley’s incomparable ability to understand people, whether he was playing with or against them. And he made occasional significant mistakes: his handling of Jofra Archer was very poor and might have had implications for the long term fitness of that remarkable athlete. But he is a smart, experienced, motivated man who has been phenomenally successful at one thing that he has spent much of the last fifteen or so years doing, and does as well as anyone else in the world. There is really no reason why Root should not also be a great captain. He has the unreserved respect, admiration and support of his team. Of course, every game, every day, every session, is different, but if it is possible for there to be a situation on a Test match field that Root has not been a part of or witness to, I would really like to know what it is. He has literally seen it all.
Brearley is often referred to as England’s greatest captain and his win percentage supports this. His book on captaincy is superb and is used as a manual by people in other fields, such as cricket tragic Sam Mendes. [See the profile of Brearley posted here on 14 January 2019]
But in a way Brearley was quite lucky as a captain, certainly when it came to his opponents. He took over from Tony Greig when the Packer crisis erupted in 1977. His Ashes squad beat the Aussies five-one Down Under in 1978-79, but the home side under Graham Yallop was virtually a second eleven, though fast bowler Rodney Hogg had a brilliant series. England lost fewer players to the “Circus” and it gave Brearley the chance to mentor outstanding newcomers such as Ian Botham and David Gower. When a truce broke out a full England team, under Brearley, went out to Australia in 1979-80 to face a full Australia team under Greg Chappell. The Ashes were not at stake. The hosts won three-nil. There was then a one-off Test in Mumbai, won by England thanks to the irresistible Botham. It was just before this game, according to Vic Marks in his excellent book on England Test captains, that Brearley informed the selectors that he did not want to tour again, although he did not rule out the possibility of leading England in one or more of the upcoming home Tests. England’s next opponents were the formidable West Indies, perhaps approaching the height of their powers, in two series, first at home and then in the Caribbean. It was the 24-year-old Botham who was selected as captain. England lost both series but fought very hard.
Everyone knows what happened next, in 1981. Australia went one-nil up in The Ashes, and Botham bagged a pair in the drawn second Test at Lord’s. He resigned and was replaced by Brearley. England won the series three-one, despite being apparently doomed on the fourth afternoon of the third Test at Headingley. In three successive matches Botham produced all-round cricket of epic proportions. Given the context, with a series victory over Australia in such circumstances, it is fair to call it the greatest performance of all time by an England cricketer. Botham was the knight in shining armour but Brearley was the wizard who made it all possible. Botham himself acknowledged this.
Root would not be human if he was not thinking about the Brearley precedent. It is very rare, in modern times, for an England captain to get a second chance. This is hardly surprising: most of them are completely burned out after the standard four-year run. Root was too, actually, but of course he did everything so young. The swinging sixties were very different, when the captaincy kept switching between Colin Cowdrey, M J K Smith, Ted Dexter and even the extremely successful Brian Close. Gower kept coming and going in the eighties, depending on whether assorted administrator bigwigs loved him or not. It is all very different now.
Nobody is expecting Root to wave a magic wand like Brearley. But he too is relatively lucky in his opponents. Pakistan have struggled recently, although they did win their last home series against Stokes’ England. South Africa are the current World Test champions, and have some outstanding players, but play so little Test cricket, relatively speaking, that England, with their new coach Stephen Fleming in place, ought to be equal to the challenge. And then, of course, in the summer of 2027, there is The Ashes.
Australia have held the urn since 2017-18, but they haven’t won a series in England since 2001 (England last won in Australia in 2010-11). It is reasonable to assume that Australia will be going through what is politely called a transitional phase in 2027; we keep saying this, but this time it might really happen. Archer, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson will form a formidable pace attack. Root could make history, like Brearley and Vaughan. He will need that knight in shining armour though. Like everyone else, I am just wondering who it will be.
