Joe Root steps down as England men’s Test captain
- Joe Root has resigned as the England men’s Test captain after a five-year tenure in the role
- ‘I am immensely proud to have captained my country and will look back on the past five years with enormous pride,’ Root says
Joe Root has today stepped down as England men’s Test captain, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have announced.
Root holds the record for the most number of matches and wins as England men’s Test captain. His 27 victories put him ahead of Michael Vaughan (26), Sir Alastair Cook, and Sir Andrew Strauss (24 each).
After being appointed as Sir Alastair Cook’s successor in 2017, Root led the side to a number of victories, including a 4-1 home series win over India in 2018 and a 3-1 triumph away to South Africa in 2020. In 2018 he became the first England men’s captain to win a Test series in Sri Lanka since 2001, a feat he went on to repeat with a 2-0 victory in Sri Lanka in 2021.
He is already England’s second highest Test run scorer of all time behind only Cook and scored 14 centuries as Captain. His tally of 5,295 runs as skipper is the highest by any England captain and puts him 5th in the all-time list behind only Graeme Smith, Alan Border, Ricky Ponting and Virat Kohli.
“I am immensely proud to have captained my country and will look back on the past five years with enormous pride. It has been an honour to have done the job and to have been a custodian of what is the pinnacle of English cricket,” Root said.
Root said he had made the decision after returning from the Caribbean tour and having time to reflect. He described it as “the most challenging decision” he has had to make throughout his cricketing career.
