Joe Root, the Dukes ball and the medium-pacers who keep hitting his pad

The ball pitches on a good length, just outside off stump, and Joe Root does what he has done for more than a decade: he presses forward, either to defend or to turn it round the corner off his pads. It hits the pad and the finger goes up. When England's captain spoke on 1 September, he had been trapped lbw nine times in his last 12 innings. At 35 he says he has always found a way out of problems like this, and he blames a new batch of Dukes balls whose seam lacquer, he thinks, has kept big scores scarce all summer.

In the eight men's Tests since Boxing Day 2025, from Melbourne and Sydney to the home series against New Zealand and Pakistan, 10 of his 13 dismissals were lbw, every one of them to a seamer. In his Tests before this run, Root was lbw to seamers about half as often per ball as the other batters in those matches. In these eight Tests the other batters were trapped about twice as often as they used to be, so conditions were livelier for everyone. Even in those conditions, being lbw half as often as them would have cost Root about two lbws. He was out lbw ten times. Almost all of them need another explanation, and seven of the ten came from seamers bowling under 135 kph.

Is the Dukes ball to blame for Root's lbws?

Partly, and Root has noticed something real. In England's six home Tests of 2026 the other batters were lbw to seamers once every 201 balls, more often than in any English summer since 2020. In the 2022 to 2025 summers that figure ran from 344 to 505 balls. Something about this season has brought the pad into play for everyone.

Take the lacquer theory at face value, though, and follow it to the end. A ball that has made every batter in England a little easier to trap has made a regular victim of one of them. Root was lbw to seamers once every 64 balls this home summer, after going about 700 balls between lbws in each of the 2022, 2024 and 2025 summers. Two of the ten also came in Melbourne and Sydney, with a different make of ball, and no new coat of varnish on a Dukes seam travels to Australia.

Root has been here before. In the 2018 and 2019 home summers he was lbw to seamers about as often as everyone else, and from 2021 to 2025 he was lbw far less often than them. The unusual part was the long spell when he hardly ever fell that way.

The slower seamers who keep trapping him

Seven of the ten lbws came from seamers under 135 kph. Matt Henry and Nathan Smith got him twice each, with one each for Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Ali and Khurram Shahzad. Hitting the seam and bowling straight is the least glamorous skill in Test cricket, and it keeps finding England's best batter.

Against those slower bowlers Root is now lbw once every 64 balls, while other right-handers facing the same bowlers in the same Tests go 270 balls between lbws. Against seamers at 135 kph and above he has been lbw only twice in the whole run, much closer to his old rate. The quicker men are getting little more out of him than they used to, while the medium-pacers fold him up like an ironing board knocked at the wrong hinge.

What has changed in Root's game?

Seamers are bowling to him much as they always have: the same line, the same speeds and no more balls at the stumps. The slower men pitch it a fraction fuller to him than to the other batters, but only slightly. His shot choices are the same as from 2022 to 2025 too. The big change came when England's approach changed in 2022, when he began leaving fewer balls outside off stump and hitting more to the leg side, and that cost him almost no lbws for four years.

He is not being beaten more often either. Root plays a false shot to 16% of the balls he faces, as in every period since 2014. The difference is where the ball goes once he is beaten, because it now hits the pad in line. Five of the ten came off defensive shots and five off flicks to leg, all from ordinary balls on a good length pitching just outside off. For that ball to hit the pad in line, it has to seam back in or his front pad has to be further across than before. The second is the likelier, because if the ball were simply seaming back more, the right-handers facing the same bowlers would be trapped as often as he is.

Can Root fix it before the Wanderers?

The run did not end with his comments. Razaullah trapped him again in the third Test against Pakistan in September, and England next play at the Wanderers on 17 December, the first of three Tests against South Africa. That gives him time, provided he works on the right thing.

Root is right that this summer's balls have made lbws more common, and wrong to blame them for his own run. Two of the ten came with a different ball, the bowling has not changed, and the gap between him and the other right-handers has opened against the slower seamers. The likeliest cause is that his front-foot press now lands across the line and puts his pad in front. At the Wanderers, Root's front foot will matter far more than the lacquer on the seam.