Joe Root’s tryst with GOAT rankings!

England captain Joe Root, tops the GOAT (Greatest player of all time against spin) rankings in the annals of cricket at the Old Blighty. Decorated with the Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2020, Root’s scores of 228 and 186 against Sri Lanka at Galle came against the spinners on a dry and breaking pitch. England hopped into Chennai for two Test matches that were supposed to be a  litmus test against the Indian tweakers. As it transpired in the first Test, Root (218 and 40) ruled the roost on a feathered of a pitch on which the home team deployed a seasoned campaigner Ravichandran Ashwin, and two tyros Shahbaz Nadeem and Washington Sundar. Demonstrating his consummate skill, powers of concentration and nimble footwork, Root has amassed 784 runs in his last six innings. He has turned out to be the master of all he purveyed, tallying as much as 842 runs in 14 Test innings on Indian soil at a remarkable average of 64.77. In other Asian countries Root has amassed 655 runs in 10 Test innings at 65.50 in Sri Lanka, 287 in five Test innings against Pakistan in the UAE. No wonder then that Root heads the GOAT index in English cricket!