England Test captain Joe Root opens up on a tricky winter and his conversion issues, with Ben Gardner.
“I wish there was a secret formula, if anyone’s got one please shout!”
You can hear the exasperation in Joe Root’s voice, and as he looks round the room at the four of us gathered to interview him, what he’s saying doesn’t feel like a piece of rhetoric, but a genuine request to help solve what may come to be seen as his defining struggle as a batsman: his conversion rate of fifties to centuries.
“In the first Test against Pakistan I played two really bad shots to get out having got starts, so for me there were plenty of things to prove – to myself more than anyone else. I wanted to contribute to that series and the summer of cricket. I hadn’t done it up to that point, and I remember going away and working really hard doing strong drills on things that were relevant and that I needed to work on, and going out there and being really ruthless in executing what I wanted to do.
“I left really well outside off stump – I felt I had been ‘got out’ a lot by left armers before that and found a way to negate that, which was important, and gained a lot of confidence for rest of series and beyond when facing left armers – and generally played risk-free cricket for most of that innings. I remember getting to 100 and being so frustrated at the way I’d played at the start of the summer and thought ‘this is my opportunity to make it really count and make it a really big score’ and I managed to do it that day. I felt in good touch as well, which helps. My feet were moving nicely and it all came together. Hopefully that feeling comes back at the start of the summer.”
At the time, the innings felt like a turning point, the moment we would look back on as when a great player became one of the greats. For whatever reason, that transition hasn’t quite occurred and now Root finds himself once again at a similar crossroads. Pakistan would do well to be wary of a player with a point to prove.
