The McCullum effect: Realigned and refined, Joe Root sets eyes on his final frontier

There's a consistently loud echo that can only be produced by giant sports halls. Specifically giant sports halls filled with teenagers. This one in Leeds has a particularly frantic feel to it. An array of Chance to Shine coaches and an army of volunteers from RBC Wealth Management are overseeing a skills and leadership session with girls from a local secondary school. Lingering in the background is a herd of local and national journalists. In the midst of the action is the man they've come to see.

At a glance, Joe Root is not obviously distinguishable from the other tracksuited leaders. His presence doesn't dominate a space. There is no strut or swagger.When he interacts with the kids and other leaders, his body language gives no indication of his status. He listens attentively and gives no hint of impatience across a morning where he is constantly pulled from one commitment to another; one minute giving a speech about leadership, the next taking part in a challenge with the kids.

Arriving at the coaching session two hours early after a ticket-booking error on my part, I do my best to construct a DIY workspace at the back of the hall. It's not a particularly edifying sight; I'm on the floor, back against the wall, with my laptop resting on my knees. As I'm beavering away, Root approaches me to say hello. We make small talk about Sheffield United's plight atthe bottom of the Championship table (apparently it's all gone downhill since Iliman Ndiaye left) before he moves on.

Root's reputation for unshowy decency has quietly been built across his career. While steadily compiling a record that surpasses any English batter before him, he's always had an everyman quality about him.

Also read: Root vs the world: Why England's greatest deserves to be in the 'Best of all time' conversation

He has been filmed enjoying Sheffield United victories alongside their manager Chris Wilder in videos posted on social media. You'll do well to spot Root, though. While Wilder is conducting the orchestra standing on a pub table, Root is part of the choir singing along in the background.

In 2019, he drew widespread praise for his firm but lowkey intervention during the St Lucia Test after hearing Shannon Gabriel use the word 'gay' as a pejorative term. "Don't use it as an insult," he told Gabriel. "There's nothing wrong with being gay." Nasser Hussain would later say that those 12 words were more important than the hundred Root scored that day, and the victory England would go on to claim.

Root has become an unassuming giant of not just cricket, but English sport more generally. In the 21st century, there aren't many English sportspeople who have enjoyed as much success as Root has while receiving so much scrutiny. Across the sports that garner national year-round attention, has any modern English sportsman been at the absolute pinnacle of their sport for so long?

Also read: Whether he catches Sachin or not, Joe Root is painting a masterpiece

Within cricket, Anderson and Stokes have reasonable claims. Anderson's longevity at Test level was unprecedented, but it took him several years to reach those heights. Stokes' star has perhaps shone brightest, but not for particularly long periods of time. Root, meanwhile, will start this winter's Ashes in his eighth separate stint as the No. 1 ranked Test batter over the last 11 years.

Also read: Joe Root’s 37 Test tons, ranked from worst to best

The comparison with Stokes is an interesting one. Stokes is the only English cricketerwho has come close to wider nationwide recognition in the 20 years since live international cricket went behind the paywall; in part due to his prominence in English cricket's transcendental moments in recent years, but also through his force of personality. The infamous Bristol nightclub incident in 2017, the court case that followed it, his brave public pronouncements on mental health and his talismanic leadership that has ushered in a previously un-English brand of cricket have all become talking points beyond the game's closest followers.

With Root, his story is more or less confined to his on-field feats. His relative anonymity in his home country speaks to cricket's broader decline in prominence over the past two decades. A few weeks ago, Instagram served up а clip from a 1999 episode of the BBC chat show On Side. On the sofa with John Inverdale was England's nervous and under-fire new captain, Nasser Hussain, in the immediate aftermath of a series defeat to New Zealand that left his side at the bottom of the Test rankings. His fellow guests that eveningwere footballing royalty in Graeme Souness and the late Gianluca Vialli.

Inverdale's first question to the then Chelsea playermanager, a day after Dion Nash had run through England at The Oval, was: "What's your solution to English cricket?" After brushing off the audience's nervous laughter, Vialli launched into an impassioned defence of Hussain for fronting up so soon after a painful loss. "I think he has been very courageous to be here. The fact that he is here to talk about cricket, I appreciate that. Sometimes people, when they are not successful, they get lost. But it is nice to know that he [Hussain] is a courageous guy, and I wish him all the best."

It's hard to imagine a modern-day equivalent; Virgil van Dijk sharing his thoughts on Jos Buttler's white-ball captaincy on A League oftheir Own.

This is the landscape that Root has flourished in. A humble sporting titan deserving of national treasure status, whose work most of the nation is broadly unaware of. If there is anything that could finally shift the dial, а leading role in an away Ashes triumph could perhaps do the trick.

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Lost in the pre-Ashes bluster is perhaps the most tangible way in which Brendon McCullum has improved this England team - the reinvigoration of Joe Root's batting. In the 41 Tests since McCullum took over as head coach, Root averages 58 and has scored 14 hundreds - as many as Botham, Lamb, Hussain and Trescothick each managed across their entire Test careers.

It wasn't as though Root was in poor form in the period before McCullum's appointment - in 2021, he effectively carried England's batting on his shoulders, scoring six of the team's seven Test hundreds in what tailed off into a miserable year that ultimately resulted in a change of both captain and coach. But there were periods of relative struggle - an 11-innings stretch without a fifty following his Chennai double-hundred and an average below 40 (and strike rate under 50) across the eight Tests in the 21/22 winter.

Since then, Root has operated at an altogether different level. It's an improvement that he in part attributes to a mindset change instigated by McCullum. "The way he looks at the game is more tactically than technically, managing what's in front of you and understanding that," he tells WCM. "That really resonated well for me. For a long time I was always obsessed with how I was lining things up, where my feet were, and that would be my safe place - if that felt good, I felt in a good place. But now, I'm not as reliant on that. It's more about managing the game better.

"I remember having a conversation with him, saying that I was finding one bowler quite tricky, [and McCullum said], 'Yeah, but he's the most consistent bowler the opposition have, you know where the ball is going to be, why not just try and change where you stand?' Little things like that [made him think], 'Why hadn't I thought of that before? It's just the most basic thing ever.' You're so used to doing things a certain way, you get so wrapped up in your own game sometimes, you don't see other areas that could really help you and make it more difficult for the opposition as well."

Joe Root's record in 41 Tests before McCullum's appointment and 41 Tests after

Root's head-to-head numbers against some of the game's most accurate quicks bear this out. The added dynamism in his game, encouraged by McCullum, has seen him improve his record against Test cricket's leading seamers, with Jasprit Bumrah the only real exception.

There have been some particularly dramatic improvements. In 2021/22, Root was dismissed four times in six innings by Scott Boland, averaging less than 10 against the Australian seamer. A more proactive approach brought a marked change in fortune; in 2023, Root scored 63 runs against Boland without being dismissed. He has enjoyed similarly notable turnarounds against Tim Southee and Matt Henry since McCullum took the reins.

Root's head-to head record against Pat Cummins is intriguing. He is the one seamer, Bumrah aside, who has maintained a consistent threat against Root either side of McCullum's appointment. Root, as much as anyone in the England team, might be the biggest beneficiary of Cummins' confirmed absence from at least the first Test of the series.

It hasn't, though, always been plain sailing for Root over the past three-and-a-half years. There was a sense in 2023 and the early stages of 2024 that he was a touch overeager to show how much he had bought into the new regime's philosophy.

After reverse-ramping Neil Wagner to slip on 14 in Mount Maunganui in early 2023, Root admitted that he'd "maybe got a bit caught up" with England's newfound aggression. A year later at Rajkot, another fluffed reverse-ramp - this time against Bumrah - led to his downfall. Unlike in New Zealand 12 months earlier, this dismissal came at a key juncture of a game that England would go on to lose. At the time, Root was on 18 with England 225-2 in response to India's 445. They were all out for 319 two hours later and eventually succumbed to a series-shifting 434-run defeat.

Also read: Brendon McCullum: England's biggest issue is they care too much and are too hard on themselves

Root's shot drew intense criticism, with the Telegraph's veteran correspondent Scyld Berry describing it as "the worst, most stupid, shot in the history of England's Test cricket".

Since that dismissal in Rajkot there has been a quiet realignment. Sightings of the reverse-ramp have been few and far between. And a year-by-year breakdown of Root's numbers reveal another shift in method.

Since the 2024 Ranchi Test - the fixture after Rajkot. Root averages 66.12 from 20 Tests, amassing nine Test hundreds. His strike-rate in that period is 62.38, down from 73.71 across his first 21 Tests under McCullum. The post-Rajkot version of Root is the most refined we've seen so far. He is both a pure technician and master tactician.

Much has been written of Root's previous failures to reach three figures in Australia. There are conditionspecific hurdles to overcome. Four years ago, Root was caught behind the wicket in all eight of his innings across the first four Tests of the series. The extra bounce makes some of his go-to shots - the back-foot drive, the dab to deep-third - riskier than they are in home conditions.

"Clearly, there's more bounce to contend with," he acknowledges. "The pace of the wickets, there's more to work with there, and the bowlers will use that to their advantage in different ways. It's just about being really clear on how you're going to score your runs and making it as hard as possible for them to get you out as well while still maximising your scoring opportunities."

Expect Australia to hang the ball well outside Root's off stump to test his patience. There is also a perception that the physical challenges that come with playing Test cricket in Australia have got the better of him; of the nine occasions he's failed to convert a fifty into a century in an overseas Ashes Test, seven have come after Root's fielded for more than 100 overs. Captaining the side in 10 of his 14 Tests in Australia - eight of which were lostwould no doubt also have taken its toll.

As he prepares for his fourth Ashes tour, free from captaincy responsibilities, Root has never been better equipped to take on Australia in Australia. He will turn 35 a few days before the Sydney Test but insists he's always learning. It's the secret to his longevity.

"I like the challenge of waking up and constantly feeling like you've got to get better and finding different ways in which to improve your game, and trying to improve the guys around you, whether it's working together in the nets, sharing ideas, stuff like that. It all fascinates me.

"When I lose that excitement of turning up to training and wanting to improve then that's the time to stop. I still get that buzz. The feeling of being involved in big series like this one is another good driver to keep going."

Joe Root is a great of the game at the peak of his powers. His feats are too wide-ranging for this Ashes tour to define him, but should he return home with the urn after a runladen series, then maybe this self-effacing, softly spoken genius from Sheffield will finally receive the wider acclaim his career deserves.

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