I don’t know where Joe Root ranks in Test cricket’s pantheon. I think he’s England’s greatest batter since Hutton, and his generation’s second greatest Test batter after Steven Smith. But that’s my view. I’ll tell you here why I’ve come to this view.
Let’s leave the jingoism to the top TV commentators and the editor of the Wisden Almanack. It is true that Root’s current record (like James Anderson’s) is in large part a function of the unprecedented rate at which England play Test cricket. Anderson, for instance, played 188 Tests in 21 years and 2 months. During this period, England played 268 Tests. He missed 80. Root has played 157 in 12 years and 6 months out of England’s 159 during this period.
But that’s neither here nor there. Root is still a marvellous player to have built that record. I first heard about him in 2011. There was talk of him getting a debut against India in England. He was discussed as a surefire 100 Test cap player, not on twitter, but by a few careful observers who don’t typically offer such prognoses. He was still about 18 months away from his Test debut. There are few players of such obvious quality as teenagers, and fewer still who make good on that obvious quality. Root is one such.
But simply, its a question of bowling depth. Root (like Smith and Virat Kohli and other contemporaries) played in the DRS era. It has been an era of superior bowling depth compared to the 2000s. The table below gives the bowling averages by bowling position for bowlers (other than those who played for the player’s team) in each player’s era. Each player’s era includes all Tests from the player’s debut to the player’s most recent Test.
For example, in Jacques Kallis’s era (14 Dec 1995 to December 26, 2013), excluding South African bowlers, the average opening bowler’s wickets cost 30.4 and 33.2 runs each, while the average change bowler’s wickets cost 33.1 and 34.0 runs each. For Graham Gooch, the corresponding figures are 25.9, 30.2, 31.7 and 36.0.
I’ll leave you to browse the table…
Bowlers by bowling position (except bowlers from the player’s team)