Oddsworth

The Oddsworth Smell Test

Claim

“Joe Root is the most overrated Test batter and was lucky to make 10,000 runs.”

Asked by @gs08bjohnson · Claim by @kumar_rish30260 ·

Smells off

Data Joe Root has 14,278 Test runs at 50.5 since his debut; of the men with 5,000 runs in that time only Steve Smith (57) and Kane Williamson (58.8) average more

Luck runs out fastest away from home, so the away column is the place to test a batter accused of padding his record. Among the men with 5,000 Test runs since December 2012, Root averages 46.9 away, and only Steve Smith at 53.6 and Kane Williamson at 48.1 do better, with Angelo Mathews matching him exactly.

Joint third of twenty is hardly a weakness. Virat Kohli averages 42.6 away, and England's own Ben Stokes 31.3.

Test batting average away from homeRuns per dismissal away, same batters, since December 2012
  1. JE Root46.9
  2. SPD Smith53.6
  3. KS Williamson48.1
  4. V Kohli42.6
  5. DA Warner32.8
  6. BA Stokes31.3
  7. FDM Karunaratne32.3
  8. AD Mathews46.9
  9. CA Pujara37.4
  10. TWM Latham34.4
  11. LD Chandimal39.7
  12. UT Khawaja40.5
  13. JM Bairstow33.4
  14. KC Brathwaite32.6
  15. Mushfiqur Rahim46.6
  16. AN Cook36.2
  17. D Elgar28.7
  18. Azhar Ali36.3
  19. Mominul Haque26.1
  20. AM Rahane39.9

Three hundred innings

Then there is the sheer volume. Root has batted 309 times in that stretch, and Smith, the only other man past 10,000 runs, has 10,713.

Luck might cover a batter for a session or a series. It does not run to three hundred innings.

Overrated, or just long-serving?

The case against Root is really a case against longevity: he has had more innings than anyone in this company and the runs have followed. Judged on average instead, he lands behind Smith and Williamson, two of the best batters of the age, and ahead of Kohli at 48.2, overall and away.

Smith and Williamson remain the only two here who beat Root both at home and abroad, and a batter who sits that close to them, and first by a distance on runs, is getting exactly the credit he has earned. A career that long at that rate owes nothing to luck.

Test batting average since December 2012Runs per dismissal, men with 5,000+ Test runs since Root's debut
  1. JE Root50.5
  2. SPD Smith57
  3. KS Williamson58.8
  4. V Kohli48.2
  5. DA Warner44.9
  6. BA Stokes34.5
  7. FDM Karunaratne39.1
  8. AD Mathews45.1
  9. CA Pujara42.2
  10. TWM Latham39.1
  11. LD Chandimal43.7
  12. UT Khawaja43.9
  13. JM Bairstow36.5
  14. KC Brathwaite33.7
  15. Mushfiqur Rahim43.7
  16. AN Cook40.4
  17. D Elgar38.5
  18. Azhar Ali41.3
  19. Mominul Haque37.6
  20. AM Rahane38.5

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