It was a miserable 2021 for Joe Root and England – series defeats to India, New Zealand and Australia saw Root and his men lose a record nine test matches in the calendar year, equalling a feat set by Bangladesh in 2003. The year was capped off by yet another humbling in Australia, with England going down 4-0, with the inevitable whitewash only denied because of rain. As the final wicket fell on a balmy Hobart evening, the inquest to the state of English cricket began.
Despite questions over the future of his captaincy, the one constant ray of hope in what was a historically bad year for this England team was the form of Joe Root. After a few difficult years with the bat, Root was back to his brilliant best, enjoying a truly historic year. Root became only the third man in history to achieve over 1,700 runs in a calendar year. His total of 1,708 runs put him behind only Sir Viv Richards and Mohammad Yusuf in terms of the highest amount of runs scored in a year.
Despite not scoring a much sought-after 100 in Australia, Root’s record-breaking year comprised four hundreds and two double hundreds. Both of his double hundreds came away from home, with Root scoring 218 in Chennai against India and his highest score of 228, which came in Sri Lanka. Root would go on to break two further records. He top-scored for England 12 times – the most in history, eclipsing the previous record of 11, which was held by Graeme Smith. He also scored 26.2% of England’s total runs surpassing the 25.5% by Gary Sobers back in 1958.
To put into context how good Root was this year, the next highest scorer for England was Rory Burns, who scored 530 runs – the difference between the two scorers was 1,178 runs. The difference in runs between the two batsmen set a new record for the biggest differential between the two highest-scoring batsmen in the same team. Root finished the year with an average of 61.
Speaking after receiving the award, Root exclaimed:
“I am incredibly proud to receive this award… I am very humbled to be in the same breath as a number of wonderful players around the world and it means a huge amount to have got this award.”
Root became only the second Englishman to win the prestigious award after Alastair Cook won it back in 2011.
With the inquest to the Ashes fallout already well underway, both Ashley Giles and coach Chris Silverwood have stood down from their positions. Although Root has publicly stated he wants to continue in the job, it remains to be seen whether he will get that opportunity. One thing is for certain – if England is to recover from one of the worst seasons in their history, they need Root to be at his brilliant best once again.
