Former captain Michael Vaughan praised Joe Root for being a special batsman and predicted he could surpass Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most runs by a batsman in the history of men’s cricket. On Sunday, Root smashed 122 off 178 balls, his 32nd Test hundred, during England’s 241-run victory over the West Indies in Nottingham to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. Root, who now has 11,940 Test runs, has also become the eighth highest scorer in Test cricket, surpassing the likes of Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene (11,814) and West Indies’ Shivnarine Chanderpaul (11,867).
“Joe Root will become England’s leading run-scorer in the coming months and is so special that he could actually overtake Sachin Tendulkar eventually. Like the rock, Root is obviously key to this, and I love that he kept the reverse in the cupboard until he was past 100 and England’s lead was huge.
“Against an attack like the West Indies in these conditions, you expect him to get a century. He lost the first innings but was so determined to get it right in the second. He would never make the same mistakes.” wrote Vaughan in his column for The Telegraph.
He also praised right-handed batsman Harry Brook for hitting his maiden Test century at home, but advised him to do something about his problems relating to facing the short ball. “Then there’s Harry Brook, who will provide viewers with so many ‘I was there’ moments in the years to come. He will play innings and pitches that will make you go ‘wow’. I’ve seen players with time, but I’m not sure I’ve seen someone with so much time to play aggressive shots looking too easy. Stillness, trigger, high hands, angled wrist.
“There’s a bit of Kevin Pietersen there, that ability to play jaw-dropping innings. Darren Lehmann has coached some serious players and tweeted on Sunday that he is in the top five players he has played balls for, alongside Steve Smith, Rohit Sharma, AB de Villiers and Kumar Sangakkara That’s special company to keep.
“The short ball is his challenge, but I don’t really think he has a weakness against it. He’s just facing a good portion of it because it’s the obvious way to pitch to someone who is so aggressive. I think he’s like a Kraigg Brathwaite, who has trouble with short things, swinging in the air at armpit height.
“Brook has done this a few times clumsily, but I think it’s just his ultra-aggressiveness. I see him scoring every morning in the Test match and he’s getting hit by the short ball, so he’s clearly thinking about In Australia, he might have to learn to get down and swing sometimes because the boundaries are bigger and the pitches faster”, he concluded.
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