Joe Root talks to TOI about the changing nature of Test batsmanship, the need to keep evolving and why it’s important to be authentic and realistic.Cricket has changed so much since you started out. What does it take to stay at the top for so long?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.A word on the recently-retired Virat Kohli? He had troubles outside the off-stump in Australia. Does it get more difficult to iron out the chinks as one gets older?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!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. So, it’s a lot to take in and manage, but with experience and more understanding of your own game, it should be easier.Is it fair to say captaincy didn’t sit well with you towards the end? What is the advice you’d give younger captains like Shubman Gill on any potential pitfalls to avoid?I wouldn’t say it didn’t sit well with me. I struggled towards the back end in terms of results, but we had our own challenges with the amount of games we played in Covid environments and being away from families. But with that it presented a fresh start for this team and a new coach, new captain, new way of looking at playing Tests.One thing I’d say, having been captain for a long period of time, is to make sure you always stay genuine to what you believe is the right way to go about things. As soon as you start trying to play someone else’s way of cricket, it’s going to be hard to be authentic and to bring out the best version of yourself.You don’t necessarily fit into the attacking ‘Bazball’ pattern, yet you’ve thrived under coach McCullum and captain Stokes (1527 runs at 58.73)?It’s about managing your own game, trying to play for the highest reward with the lowest risk possible, for as long as possible. That’s the art of batting, clearly. Maybe, having a slightly different role within the team helped. Having someone like ‘Baz’ (McCullum) come into our environment and have a slightly different way of looking at the game opened my mind up to seeing situations differently.Are qualities like patience, stubbornness, the willingness to bide one’s time — what we’ve come to know as essential components of Test batting — in short supply today?No. I just think the younger crop looks at things differently. Cricket across formats is always evolving. Players are always trying to find different ways to stay ahead of trends, whether that’s modes of dismissal as a batter, or if you bowl in a certain way, having as many options and skills as possible.Within Tests, teams have more modes of operation now, even in bowling attacks. There are more left-armers, more varied spinners. Guys use the crease a lot more than maybe they would have done 20 years ago. There are a lot of subtle changes the introduction of T20s has provided Test cricket.Now, even if the game is played a little bit quicker, teams try to score a little bit faster. There are passages of play which you have to manage differently.That said, even when you’re scoring quickly, you still have to be able to absorb pressure. So, there’s definitely an element of stubbornness, that willingness to be tough, to outlast the other side. But the way it looks and the way you have to use that stubbornness is slightly different to how it was 20 years ago.Do you think the bigger teams have more responsibility to make the Test format exciting and create lastingmemories for fans?Tests are the pinnacle of the sport. Wherever you are, you’re faced with different challenges. In the subcontinent the ball might be spinning, there’s a different bounce. The ball itself is different. There’s heat to contend with. When you come here, it can be quite cold, can swing around, it can be green and nipping everywhere. The Dukes ball does different things. You go to Australia, again, it’s very different. Same with South Africa.The fact is you have to manage so many different factors, right over five days, and the wicket can change drastically. All of the little intricacies of the game make it, in my eyes, stand above the rest. The more we can celebrate that and protect it and showcase it to the rest of the world, the better.How much time is needed to assess whether a new player is cut out for Tests?It’s a very difficult question to answer. Everyone has a different rate of development. Look at someone like Harry Brook — came straight into the team, duck to water. Incredible. There are other players that take a little bit longer, but it doesn’t mean they’re not going to be successful. Look at Michael Hussey, he didn’t play Test cricket till he was in his late 20s, early 30s.It’s not straightforward. It might be that someone like (Yashasvi) Jaiswal comes in and has an amazing series, like he did against the West Indies, and goes to Australia and scores a hundred. Everyone’s journey is unique, but some people just take that little bit longer.Being a selector is not something that I look forward to down the line! I can imagine, being in India, with the amount of talent and the amount of players there are to pick from, it’d be a very difficult thing to get right. To navigate through that must be a real challenge.(Watch India tour of England from 3:30 PM, June 20th onwards LIVE on Sony Sports Ten 1 and Sony Sports Ten 5 channels)
