Michael Vaughan Fires Jasprit Bumrah Warning To Joe Root After His Flop Show In 3rd Test Against Sri Lanka

Former England captain Michael Vaughan has issued a stern Jasprit Bumrah warning to world No. 1 Test batter Joe Root after a flop show by him in the third Test against Sri Lanka, which England lost by 8 wickets at The Oval on Monday (September 9).

Root, who scored twin centuries in the second Test played at the Lord’s, was only able to score 13 and 12 runs in the final Test of the three-match series.

In his column for The Telegraph, Vaughan discussed how Bumrah could severely impact Root’s performances during their five-match Test series next summer.

“Jasprit Bumrah enjoys bowling at Root and could severely limit his output next summer,” he wrote. Vaughan also referred to Australia skipper Pat Cummins, who also boasted an upper hand over Root. “The same goes for Pat Cummins in Australia, where Root has never scored a hundred. England have to have ways of succeeding when Root doesn’t make big runs. On the basis of this game, they don’t,” Vaughan added.

Realising Root’s importance, Vaughan talked about the former England Test captain’s impact and wrote, “This week really hit home to me how important Joe Root is to this batting lineup. His batting is the key. All these flamboyant players around him get flamboyant fifties. But without the glue at No. 4 getting the huge amount of runs he does, they are knackered. He can’t do it every week, and he didn’t do it this week.”

Root is arguably England’s best batter of all time. He holds the record of scoring most centuries in Tests and ODIs for the Three Lions, and in addition to that, he is the all-time leading run scorer of the country in international cricket.

He has 12,401 runs to his name in Test cricket, and he needs 72 more to break Alastair Cook’s record of most runs for England in the five-day format of the game. In addition to that, Root is also on the verge of becoming the first batter in the history of the World Test Championship to score 5000 runs. He has 4973 runs to his name in 58 matches played so far and needs just 27 more to achieve the feat.