Last Updated on 4 years by Charbel Coorey
Analysis: What makes Joe Root so good & how do you get him out? | A technical analysis of the England captain Joe Root
Joe Root has been in magnificent touch in 2021. The English captain has piled up 1,455 runs at a superb average of 66.13 so far this year.
He was outstanding in Sri Lanka, scored a double hundred in India and now he is having a dream run in the home series against India. He seems technically solid, but there are still some areas in his game that opponents can exploit.
In this article, I am going to highlight what makes Joe Root difficult to dismiss and what should be the most appropriate line of attack for him. Here we go.
Joe Root’s backfoot game and side-on stance:
One of the major reasons behind the Indian bowlers finding it hard to dismiss Root is his tendency to stay on the backfoot and play the ball late. He has a backward trigger movement, which provides him the extra time to play the ball late right under his eyes.
Another specialty in Root’s technique is his side-on stance. This allows him to play along the movement square of the wicket. He has scored a lot of runs by guiding the moving ball towards the backward point or third man with perfection due to both of these factors.
What exactly does Joe Root do?
Let’s analyse Joe Root’s overall technique against the fast bowlers.
Joe Root has an initial backfoot trigger movement. He takes his stance around the leg stump and moves his back foot backwards along the same line (image 1). He doesn’t have the “back and across” trigger movement (that he had in the Ashes 2019); the reason being his willingness to play the ball inside the line, stop his instinct (if any) to chase the ball and avoid being trapped in front of the stumps.
After the backfoot trigger, he takes his front leg marginally across to come to his ‘neutral position’ when the bowler is about to deliver the ball (images 2 and 3).
After that, he begins to anticipate the line and length and starts moving his front foot across in varying degrees accordingly. If the ball is expected to be fullish and outside the off stump, he takes his front leg across and drives the ball (images 4 and 5).
If Root expects the ball to pitch on either short of a good length or short length, he takes his front leg marginally across and plants it around the middle stump (image 6).
Then, his front leg pushes his body backwards and he punches (image 7) or guides the ball through square or third man (if the ball is further outside the off stump) (image 8) or pulls it (if it comes towards his body).
What should be the ideal plan to Joe Root?
As Root moves his front foot across in varying degrees as per the length, he can only be beaten on length. As I have already mentioned, he plants his front leg in the middle stump line while playing balls pitched around the short of the good length or shorter than that. So, he doesn’t cover his off stump if he believes that the ball is not going to be ‘that full’ (image 9).
So ideally, the bowler should try to pitch the ball right on the good length around the 4th or the 5th stump channel and bring it back into him. If the ball is pitched exactly on the good length, Root will probably get confused regarding the extent to which he is supposed to take his front leg across to cover his off stump and there will be a chance of him reacting late.
Bumrah did exactly the same in the 1st innings of the 3rd Test and Root inside-edged the ball to his stumps (image 10).
Although Umesh bowled the ball short of a good length, the ball skidded off the surface and jagged back into Root in the first innings of the 4th Test. As a result, Root could find neither the room nor the time to play the ball off the backfoot, which he usually does and his off stump was shattered (image 11).
So there remains some uncertainty around his off-stump which the bowlers should primarily try to exploit.
The bowler can also try the ‘inswing-out seam’ deliveries around that channel to make him poke away from his body without the required movement of the front foot. Bumrah has done this twice in this series (in the second innings of the first two Tests) (image 12).
If you drop anything shorter than the good length, he can easily play/leave the ball by pushing himself back. If you bowl anything fuller, he can easily drive that through either the ‘V region’ or square of the wicket. Similarly, if you target his middle or leg stump, he easily flicks the ball through the midwicket or square leg.
Therefore, there exists a very small margin for error for the bowlers while bowling to him.
Joe Root’s technique demands the bowlers to attack his off stump relentlessly from the good length spot in order to dismiss him, which consequently leaves a very small margin for error for the bowlers. It is really tough to dismiss him.
So, the opposition’s bowling unit should not lose patience, keep bowling in that particular channel and try force the mistake.
Written by Debashish Sarangi. Follow Debashish on Twitter today.
