Stuart Broad “hasn’t given any thought” to the possibility of taking over England’s Test captaincy in the aftermath of Joe Root’s resignation as skipper and the debate surrounding his possible successor.
Root stepped down as Test captain earlier this week, ending with the most matches (64), wins (27) and defeats (26) by any England skipper. The final phase of his term was a difficult one for the Test side: they have won just once in their last 17 Tests. The two favourites to succeed Root as Test captain are all-rounder Ben Stokes and fast bowler Stuart Broad, despite the latter having been left out of their most recent series, in the West Indies.
Writing in his column for Daily Mail, Broad congratulated Root for his five-year-long stint, lauding him for being a leader who was “universally liked”.
“I can hear team-mates saying: ‘He’s a legend,'” he said. “That’s quite a rare feat to achieve in the world of sport because success and popularity do not go hand in hand and I can say with confidence that not everyone I’ve played with would be complimentary about me.
“Beyond the dressing room, Joe has been an amazing ambassador for the game of cricket. The best, I would suggest, that we’ve had.”
On the poor end to Root’s tenure, Broad defended the former skipper, putting forward the mitigating circumstances of player availability and uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Yes, you are always going to rotate bowlers and there will always be a batsman under pressure for their place but generally we’ve gone through a period of great uncertainty and a huge amount of change due to issues caused by the pandemic,” Broad said.
“How often would Joe be able to say, hand on heart, that he had his best team available? Building into that Ashes series last winter, pretty much never.
“So, it’s unfair to dwell on the last couple of years of Joe’s captaincy for that reason. Yes, he may have lost more Tests than any other England captain but neither can any of his predecessors match his 27 wins.”
Broad also credited Root’s successes as a leader, describing him as having shown “great leadership on and off the field” during and before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“He led the team brilliantly in South Africa during 2019-20, and through the first summer of the pandemic to beat both West Indies and Pakistan, when Covid was a new and nerve-inducing thing and he showed great leadership on and off the field,” he said.
Addressing the discussions surrounding Root’s replacement, and where Broad himself fits into the equation, the seamer insisted that his focus currently lies on earning back the England Test cap by doing well in the County Championship.
“Naturally, I am aware that my name has been touted as a potential successor to Joe as England captain,” Broad said, “and I guess that is because I am an experienced centrally contracted player who has been around the international game a long time.
“However, it is not something I have given any thought to because firstly I am not currently in possession of a shirt within the England Test team and my focus is very much on changing that by taking wickets for Nottinghamshire over the next few weeks.”
Broad was famously omitted from England’s tour of the Caribbean earlier this year – Root’s final captaincy assignment – a decision that surprised several pundits. England’s second-highest Test wicket-taker after James Anderson – another notable omission from the tour – Broad wrote that his focus lay on earning his place back in a side that has gone through plenty of selection changes recently.
“In fact, I would argue we are in a fairly unique position as far as selection for the Test team goes right now in that there are only two players whose names you could write in pen on the scorecard,” Broad said.
“One of them is Joe Root, the other is Ben Stokes — and one of them isn’t going to be captain for the first Test of the summer against New Zealand at Lord’s on June 2 because he has just given the job away.”
On his own dealings with Root, especially his omissions from the first and third Test in the 2021/22 Ashes and the West Indies tour that followed, Broad said that the frustrations of missing out didn’t manifest into any bitterness towards the former captain.
“People may question my relationship with Joe given recent history but I’ve always been good at differentiating between friendship and business,” Broad said, “and of course while I was frustrated by decisions to leave me out of Ashes matches and for the tour of West Indies, I didn’t show bitterness towards Joe. From my point of view, that’s professional sport and it would never stop me enjoying a nice glass of red wine or playing a round of golf with those who came to such decisions.”
