Root Averaged 57 Under Bazball — Now He Has to Lead Whatever Comes Next

Joe Root was England's Test captain for 64 matches between 2017 and 2022. He won 27 of them — more than any English captain in history. He also lost 26 — more than any English captain in history. He stepped down exhausted, after winning just one of his final 17 Tests, and the captaincy passed to Ben Stokes.

Stokes, with Brendon McCullum whispering chaos from the coaching box, then won 27 Tests from 49 with the same group of players playing a brand of cricket Root had never imagined. They called it Bazball. Root, freed from the captaincy, averaged 57 with 11 hundreds in 35 Tests under it — comfortably the best phase of his career.

Now Stokes has retired. McCullum has been sacked. And Root, at 35, has been handed the keys back to a side that was built by people who thought he was doing it wrong.

The numbers from the Stokes-McCullum era are fascinating in their contradictions. Twenty-seven wins from 49 Tests is an excellent record — a 55% win rate that puts it among England's best stretches. They whitewashed Pakistan away from home, beat India 4-1 in 2018, dominated New Zealand, and turned English Test cricket into appointment viewing.

But they never beat India or Australia in a series. They drew the 2023 Ashes at home, lost 4-1 in India, and while they did win the 2025-26 Ashes 4-1, the cracks were showing well before that. Only two draws in 49 Tests tells you something: this team didn't know how to hold on. It was attack or collapse, entertainment or embarrassment.

That's the inheritance Root just accepted. A philosophy that transformed English cricket but couldn't quite crack the glass ceiling against the two teams that matter most. Root's job isn't to tear it down — it's to add the steel it was always missing.

Root's first captaincy stint ended with the look of a man who'd had every drop of joy squeezed out of him. The 4-0 Ashes defeat in 2021-22, the grind of leading a side that couldn't compete abroad, the accumulation of losses — it all took a toll. He averaged 51 but looked like he was carrying the entire team on his back while the dressing room searched for an identity.

The Root who sits in front of the microphones in August 2026 is unrecognisable from that man. He's lighter. He's funnier. He's scored his first Ashes centuries on Australian soil. He's watched the game from the back of the bus for four years and learned what a team looks like when it's not afraid of anything.

The coaching structure tells its own story. Marcus Trescothick — the legendary Somerset and England opener who battled anxiety to carve out one of the great careers in English cricket — is the interim head coach for the Pakistan series. Stephen Fleming, New Zealand's all-time great captain and Chennai Super Kings' long-time strategist, takes over permanently for the South Africa series later in the year.

Root on Fleming: "I'm very excited by the way he sees the game... done some amazing things as a player and coach." That's not an empty compliment. Fleming's tactical sophistication in franchise cricket — the ability to read situations and adapt in real time — is precisely the quality Root wants to inject into a side that spent four years treating every session like a T20.

The squad itself has been reshuffled. Jordan Cox, an Essex batter who debuted at No. 7 against New Zealand earlier this year, has been catapulted to No. 3 after Jacob Bethell's knee injury. Cox has batted at three exactly once in first-class cricket. Dan Lawrence — 788 County Championship runs at 65.66 with five centuries for Surrey — has been recalled after two years in the wilderness. Ollie Pope returns as a reserve keeper-batter. Brydon Carse is back from injury.

The most revealing thing Root has said isn't the headline quote about not ripping everything up. It's the qualifier that follows: "But there are areas we want to sharpen up a little bit and become a little bit sterner with."

Sterner. That word is doing a lot of work. Bazball's defining characteristic was its refusal to be stern about anything. It was carefree, audacious, often brilliant — and occasionally reckless to the point of self-destruction. Two draws in 49 Tests. Think about that. This was a team that treated a draw like a loss, and sometimes turned a drawn position into an actual loss because it couldn't stop attacking.

Root wants the energy but not the chaos. The fearlessness but not the recklessness. The intent but not the blind spots. It's a harder trick than it sounds — every coach who's ever tried to add discipline to a free-spirited side has risked killing the thing that made it special in the first place.

The Pakistan series — three Tests starting August 19 at Headingley, then Lord's, then Edgbaston — is the perfect opener for Root 2.0. Pakistan are a good side with Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, and genuine quality across the board, but they're not India or Australia. This is a series England should win, and winning it convincingly would give Root the runway to start implementing deeper tactical changes before Fleming arrives.

Starting at Headingley is almost too neat. Root has scored more Test runs at his home ground than anywhere else. He knows every blade of grass, every gust of wind, every quirk of the Western Terrace crowd. If there's a place to begin the post-Bazball era, this is it.

But the real exam comes later. South Africa at home. Then the tours that define captaincy tenures — the away series against top sides where philosophy meets hostile conditions and partisan crowds. That's where Bazball bent and broke. That's where Root needs his version to hold.

Here's the thing nobody in English cricket wants to say out loud: Joe Root became a better batter because someone else became captain. The freedom of playing under Stokes — of not worrying about field placements, bowling changes, or managing a dressing room — unlocked the best version of Root the batsman. Averaging 57 with a strike rate near 70 is absurd for a player who averaged 49 in his first captaincy stint.

Now the burden is back. The questions, the press conferences, the tactical decisions, the blame when things go wrong. Root says he's energised. He says he's in "a very different place." He probably is. But the captaincy has a way of finding the cracks in even the most confident armour, and the last time Root wore it, it nearly broke him.

The difference this time? He knows what joy looks like. He's felt what cricket is supposed to feel like when you're not drowning in responsibility. The gamble is that he can keep that feeling alive while leading — that Root the captain and Root the liberated run machine can coexist in the same body.

Pakistan starts in eight days. The post-Bazball era starts at Headingley. And the most prolific run-scorer in English Test history is back in charge, older and freer and acutely aware that the last four years were the most fun he's ever had — playing for someone else.