India are without the presence of ever-so-energetic Virat Kohli in the tour of England. Kohli left his favourite format after an underwhelming tour of Australia where he started with a century in Perth but had diminishing returns after. Kohli's dismissals in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 were behind the wicket and there were questions raised on his technique to tackle deliveries outside off stump. England's leading Test run-scorer Joe Root was asked about whether it gets difficult in the latter part of one's career to make technical changes. Root feels making changes in mid-series can be difficult and has its pros and cons as well.
“Every player is different. If you’re in a five-match Test series and there’s something in your game that doesn’t sit well with you, it can be difficult. You haven’t got time to go and get two weeks off to work on that thing. There’s no breathing space unless you make a drastic change within a Test. But then you’re playing against some very high-quality players in their own conditions. And let’s not forget, a lot of people will keep mentioning how you got out!,” Root told the Times of India.
“Kohli still got 100 in that first Test (in Perth), which India won. It’s all about what you can do to wrestle things back in your favour — whether it’s a change of guard or batting out of your crease or in your crease, or to try and create width by staying leg-side of the ball rather than feeling like you’ve got to make technical changes in that short span. Whenever you make a change, there could be massive pros to it and slight cons to it. You’ve got to work out if it’s worth doing each and every time,” he added.
Root on overcoming weakness and tough situations
Root said that the game has changed so much during his career. However, he has managed to evolve and find ways to overcome his weakness.
"It certainly hasn’t been easy. I’ll tell you that for free! One thing that served me well is to never be content. The more I play, the more information there is for other teams to work with in terms of modes of dismissals or weaknesses. You’ve got to find ways of combating that and make sure there isn’t a flaw that stays in your game for too long.
"It’s about constantly looking to evolve, finding ways of scoring off good balls, being able to rotate strike from good deliveries so it’s difficult for individual bowlers to build pressure. Doing that has given me an opportunity to stay relatively consistent, but also realistic about good and bad times. There are going to be periods when it’s tough. It’s about how you react and how quickly you can turn things around through hard work and honest reflection," the former England Test captain said.
Root set to rewrite Test record books
Root is set to script history in the upcoming five-Test series against India which will kick off on January 20 at Headingley, Leeds. He needs 373 more runs to become the second-highest run-scorer in Test cricket.