Joe Root, who became a father just four days before arriving in India, has ruled himself out of this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL) as he is eager to spend time at home with his new-born child.
“It is a shame because there is a really good window in the international calendar to play. But looking at the schedule, especially next winter, I am going to be away for long periods,” Root said.
“This will be a great opportunity to spend time at home and watch (son) Alfred grow up a little bit. A lot of great things would come from the IPL, a lot of great experiences and I am sure it would help to improve my game.
“But at the moment being at home is my priority and I want to make sure I do not miss out on that. It is quite tough being away in these early days so it will be nice to catch up,” he added.
Root, England’s vice-captain, hailed Virat Kohli after the latter played a sublime innings to take his team home in the first match of the ongoing ODI series. The visitors were looking destined to win the match when they reduced India to 63 for 4 after posting a mammoth 350. However, the India captain, who had scored 644 runs in the preceding Test series, once again proved a flesh in their thorn by scoring a magnificent 122 as India chased down the huge total quite comfortably in the end. He was ably supported by Kedar Jadhav who scored 120 from only 76 balls to bag the Man of the Match award.
Speaking at the team hotel in Pune before the second ODI in Cuttack on Thursday, Root said:
“He’s one of the best at run chases in the game, in fact, he probably is the best at it. His record says he’s got 15 hundreds chasing scores down now. I’d love to sit and chat with him, but I’ve not had that opportunity yet. Definitely watching him go about his business there is a lot of thought behind it.”
“One thing he did was talk his partner through it at the other end and helped him construct his innings. There was a lot of thought behind it and for us, that is something we’ve got to learn from,” he added.
Root also rued the fact that his team could not capitalise on the opportunity to win the match. Kohli was looking vulnerable during the early stages of his innings but the English bowlers failed to cash in on the rare chance and the Indian skipper added 200 run with fellow centurion Jadhav to kick England out of the contest.
“It was disappointing how it panned out considering the start we had,” he said. “One thing we noticed is that early on he chanced his arm which you have to, I suppose, to get up near the run rate.
“We didn’t get the opportunities to stick, and in hindsight, if we could have slightly more individual plans to him then that could be a way to go. He got one just over the third man and it looked like we were going to take a wicket at any stage in that five-over period after [MS] Dhoni got out,” he concluded.