Should England recall Joe Root for T20 cricket after consistent struggles facing spin bowling in India?

Posted by author February 4, 2025 Cricket

Joe Root is back in England’s white-ball set-up, just perhaps a little later than he should have been.

While England’s T20 team were being bamboozled by spin during a 4-1 series defeat in India, losing 29 wickets to that type of bowling, their best player of it was starring in the same format, at franchise level for Paarl Royals in South Africa’s SA20.

Root notched 323 runs across 10 innings, with two golden ducks and a knock of six quickly forgotten as they came around three half-centuries, including a joint career best of 92 from 60 balls.

The Yorkshireman also made 62 not out from 44 deliveries and an unbeaten 78 from 56 before he jetted off to India to link up with England ahead of the three-match one-day international series against India that starts in Nagpur on Thursday (8am UK).

“The T20 format has evolved a lot but you’re playing the game of cricket and it’s about problem-solving, just on a much quicker scale than what I’ve been doing the majority of the time,” Root told ESPNcricinfo during his successful SA20 stint.

England can now call upon Root’s experience, nous and invention, something sorely lacking during their drubbing in the T20 leg versus India when batters seemed to be thinking only in sixes against the hosts’ spinners and regularly holed out in the deep.

Why has Root been absent from England’s T20 plans? 🤔

It is getting on for six years since Root last played a T20 international – against Pakistan in Cardiff in May 2019 – and, to be fair, there are some logical reasons for that.

The packed schedule, only made more congested following the Covid-19 pandemic with so many tours to squeeze in, has made it incredibly difficult for players to appear in all forms, with some white-ball series starting just a day after red-ball assignments finish.

England also prioritised Root for Test cricket when he was captain, while since he handed over the reins to Ben Stokes months after the 4-0 Ashes shellacking in Australia in 2021/22, the overall team focus has been on the longest form of the game, too.

But the main reason for Root’s T20 exile has been the batting depth – and power – elsewhere, with England’s classiest batter jettisoned for bigger hitters: Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan in the past, Phil Salt and Liam Livingstone now.

Surely, though, there remains a place for guile when it comes to T20 batting, particularly when in Root’s case it would be provided by a man with 36 Test hundreds as well as 16 in one-day internationals? And it’s not as if he doesn’t have all the modern shots.

We have regularly seen him reverse scoop in Test cricket – even if on one of those occasions, against India in Rajkot last winter, his dismissal to that stroke was branded the “stupidest shot in English Test history” by Telegraph writer Scyld Berry.

Root’s ability to manipulate the field and toy with bowlers could be a real asset, especially as England build for the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in early 2026. He was the third-highest run-scorer when the tournament was last held in India in 2016.

He amassed 83 off 44 balls against South Africa in Mumbai as England chased down a target of 230, nailing sixes with lofted drives, pulls, uppercuts and reverse sweeps.

Root then made 54 in the final, rallying his team from 23-3 to a score of 155-9, which looked like being enough until Stokes was Carlos Brathwaited in the final over.

Will Ashes get in way of T20 recall? 🏏

While winning a third T20 title, after the 2010 success in the West Indies and 2022 triumph in Australia, is obviously a goal for England, the ultimate one, of course, is regaining the Ashes away from home in the months before the World Cup.

Australia is one of the few remaining citadels Root is yet to conquer as a Test player. He has never won a series there. He’s never even scored a hundred there, with a best of 89 in 27 innings and an average of 35.68 compared to his overall mark 50.87.

England and Root would be reluctant to do anything that risks stunting his remarkable scoring in Test cricket with the batter piling on over 5,100 runs across the last four years including 19 hundreds, during which time he has played zero T20Is and just 22 ODIs.

But with the calendar easing enough for Brendon McCullum to coach all formats, perhaps it is the time for Root to play across all of them as well. His Test numbers, and England’s fragility against spin, combine to make a compelling case for T20 inclusion.

His spin bowling might come in handy as well – Root showing that element of his game in the SA20, taking five wickets at an economy rate of seven across 19 overs in the tournament.

“I think you’re always a better player when you’re not in the team,” Root said recently when asked about a possible England T20 recall. The question now is are England a better T20 team with him in it?