Joe Root on Friday stepped down as England’s Test captain. The 31-year-old captained the team for 64 matches, winning 27 Tests and losing 26. His victories put him ahead of Michael Vaughan (26), Sir Alastair Cook, and Sir Andrew Strauss (24 each).  

Root was appointed as England’s Test captain after Sir Alastair Cook quit from the post in 2017. The highlights of Joe Root’s captaincy stint were 4-1 home series win over India in 2018 and 3-1 win versus South Africa in 2020. Under his leadership the Three Lions managed to win their first Test series in Sri Lanka since 2001. 

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Root scored 5,295 runs as skipper – highest by any England captain and 5th in the all-time list behind Graeme Smith, Alan Border, Ricky Ponting and Virat Kohli. The 31-year-old reached the three-figure mark 14 times as captain. 

However, England managed to win only one in 12 Tests in the current World Test Championship cycle. Root and co faced a 4-0 defeat in the prestigious Ashes and then were beaten by West Indies 1-0 in an away series. 

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Announcing his decision, Root, in ECB’s press release said, “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.”

He further added that he knows that the timing for him to step down is just right. 

“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.”

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Tom Harrison, ECB Chief Executive Officer parised the former captain saying that he led by example. 

“Joe’s leadership qualities were exemplified by how he led the team through some of the most difficult and uncertain times we have known, playing during the pandemic all over the world, which speaks volumes for him as a leader and as a person,” Harrison said.