Very clear how I want to take England forward: Joe Root responds to Shane Warne’s criticism

England’s Test skipper Joe Root has strongly reacted to Australia spin great Shane Warne, who advised Root to relinquish his captaincy to improve his batting. “Maybe England could think about their best player having the shackles off, not having the responsibility of captaincy, and give it to someone like Jos Buttler,” Warne had said last week.

“If he [Root] totally 100 per cent concentrates on his cricket, his batting and nothing else, then maybe we might see Joe Root become the best batsman in the world. He’s got the talent to do it.”

Writing for in his column for Sky Sports, Root, under whom England thrashed No. 1 ranked India 4-1 in the Test series this year, said he’s very clear what he wants to do with his career and has plans to lead England forward.

“I don’t agree with him, but he is entitled to his opinions. He is a huge fan of Jos Buttler, as am I, he has spent a lot of time with him in Rajasthan. Not everyone is going to say what you want to hear all the time. I am very clear about how I want to take this Test team forward, I think we made huge strides over the summer and playing in Sri Lanka in November is another opportunity to keep developing and growing as a team,” Root wrote on Tuesday.

“It is one of those things that you can do nothing about. It is up to people to make their own minds up about. A lot of the time in sport people say things and it is up to the public to make their own mind up about it. I am very comfortable in my position, I know where I want to take this team and I fully feel I am the right man to do that.”

Root, who has led England in 21 Tests, also praised Olly Stone, who made his ODI debut and claimed 1/23 in the rain-curtailed 31-run win over Sri Lanka in the second ODI at Dambulla on October 13.

“I was very impressed with Olly Stone, for being his first game you would never have thought that watching him bowl. He was in control of what he was trying to do, bowled some brilliant lengths at good pace and caused a lot of problems. He built pressure and that partnership between him and Woakesy [Chris Woakes], Woaksey took the majority of the wickets but between them they bowled exceptionally well with the new ball and got us well ahead of the game.

“It was a brilliant start to his career and hopefully, he can take a huge amount of confidence from that. As most guys do nowadays, he has fitted in very quickly with our team. He is a quiet guy, has a good sense of humour and gets on with everyone. It is really pleasing to see him come in and put in a really strong performance first time around.”

Root’s batting average reduced from 51.04 to 46.80 when he took charge of the Test side. Moreover, just three of his 14 Test hundreds have come as skipper.

“I feel in a pretty good place with my batting and feel as though I have a good understanding of my role and how I am going to go about scoring my runs and read the situation. I figure things out in the middle and have done so for a while now. It is amazing how quickly things turn around. If you look at the start of the summer, I had a tough series against Australia and very quickly in the space of four games things have changed drastically.

“For me it is a reminder of how important it is to never get complacent and never get too down. And to stay quite real with everything and understand that every time you go out on to the field it is an opportunity to try and build a score or chase one down and do everything you can to help your side win.”