England batting legend Geoffrey Boycott has made a scathing assessment of Joe Root’s captaincy in the recent second Test against New Zealand at the Oval, saying the 35-year-old has ‘learned nothing’ from his difficult first stint. Boycott went as far as ‘thanking heavens’ for Ben Stokes’ return for the third match.
Stokes was suspended from the second game pending investigation for his and Gus Atkinson’s alleged involvement in a nightclub altercation with a Rugby player after England’s win in the first Test. Root was asked to step up ahead of vice-captain Harry Brook, seemingly because of Brook’s own history of such incidents and the instability of the English 11, which was forced to field three debutants.
England were convincingly outplayed and lost by a margin of 253 runs, marking Root’s record 27th defeat as Test captain. Soon after, Stokes was confirmed to return for the third Test, with the ECB saying him and Atkinson were given a written warning after being found guilty of breaching contractual obligations — reportedly, staying out beyond the midnight curfew rules — but not involved in any violence.
“Thank heavens Ben Stokes will be back to lead England at Trent Bridge because it appeared Joe Root had learnt nothing from his last stint as England captain,” Boycott wrote for The Telegraph.
“Now that Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson have retired from Test match cricket, Root is the undisputed best batsman in the world. What a wonderful thing to be able to say about a smashing lad who everybody likes, including me. But having praised his batting, I take no pleasure in saying he does not have a feel for captaincy as we saw at the Oval,” he added.
Boycott said Root’s handling of Archer at the Oval echoed mistakes made during England’s 2019 tour of New Zealand, when the pacer was given a heavy workload and lengthy spells of short-pitched bowling. He argued that such demands increase the risk of injury, especially for a bowler with Archer’s fitness history.
“Captaincy is a gift and a good leader has a natural inkling about who to bowl and what field to set for different batsmen,” he wrote. “You cannot read it in a book but you can learn from watching opposition captains from all over the world. Sometimes it is intuition or luck and occasionally when you get a guy who is lucky and good then you get an exceptionally successful leader. Stokes is very good at handling Jofra Archer whereas Joe seemed to make the same mistakes at the Oval as he did when he captained England in New Zealand in 2019,” he added.
