Joe Root insists he will be primed and ready for the Ashes this summer after picking the brains of one of the greats.
Root might be at the IPL for the first time in his career, but ahead of England’s first fixture against Ireland he admits Test cricket has still been on his mind. And it is thanks to the sort of cricket royalty that the IPL attracts that he has been able to talk in depth about the longest format with Brian Lara.
Lara is coaching at Sunrisers Hyderabad where Harry Brook is finding his way, but it was in conversation with Root that the former Windies run machine may well end up helping England’s Ashes cause.
“It’s been great, I’ve really enjoyed it,” said Root, who is still yet to bat in a competitive match for the Rajasthan Royals. “It has been a bit different, but I’ve had some really good and interesting conversations with coaches and ex players out here about Test cricket.
“I spoke with Brian Lara about batting for a few hours which was really insightful. At this stage of my career and where I am as a player, I feel like that is where I am going to learn the most, by picking people’s brains and thinking about what I can add to my own game and taking it forward into the next few years.
“You come here and try to develop parts of your white ball game and to be around T20 cricket has been amazing, but to get the chance to speak about Test cricket with Lara and Kumar Sangakkara and other current players is invaluable.”
It is a credit to Root that he is still searching for those small increments of improvement when he is already one of English cricket’s greatest players. Inevitably there will be the odd brickbat who would rather see him back at Headingley and doing what he has always done for Yorkshire and score more runs in county cricket, but if anyone has earned the right to do things their way it is the man with nearly 11,000 Test runs.
He will be back in time to play against Ireland and as far as he is concerned it doesn’t really matter what format he is playing as long as it is cricket. Although it is worth noting that Root’s lack of match action since his last Test against New Zealand, where he scored 153 and 95, is somewhat similar to his 2020 break due to covid, and on returning he has averaged 55 with 12 hundreds.
“Even if we get to the final, I will still be back in time for the Ireland Test,” he confirmed to Mirror Sport. “I’m very much keen to play that game and I don’t ever want to miss Test cricket.
“I’ll make sure I’m ready to go for that Test match and I’m excited about trying to put the things I’ve talked about into my performances. If you ask me, batting is batting and the best batters in the world, regardless of the format, play the situation in front of them better than anyone else consistently well, and that is it.
“Just going out and playing accordingly. That works at both ends of the spectrum, and with the way our Test team have been playing they are not too far apart anyway.”
