The Telegraph Cricket Podcast · The Telegraph

Joe Root’s made Test history, overtaking… Alastair Campbell?

·58 min·3 clips

Geoffrey Boycott says England’s top players are ‘getting themselves out’ against the new ball.

Joe Root’s double ton day is the centre of gravity here. The panel opens by circling the oddity of the record and the confusion around who he has moved past, before landing on the point that Root is now England’s leading Test century maker. From there, the discussion widens to England’s summer, which has run to five wins from five. The tone stays measured rather than celebratory for its own sake. There is interest in the milestone, but more interest in what the team is becoming around it. The Oval is the next stop, and the home ground advantage is treated as a real factor rather than a slogan. The conversation then turns to the practical side of being in the middle of a Test side. Pope’s role as vice captain gets proper attention. The panel treats that job as more important than it is often given credit for. Stokes’s presence still shapes how that role works. The idea is not that the on field captaincy is meaningless. It is that the tactical noise around it is often overstated. The show argues that there are ten other players on the field who will quickly show whether decisions are working. DRS gets a mention in passing, along with the familiar jokes that come with it. The larger point is that captaincy is not just about bowling changes. Leadership, temperament and the fit between roles matter too. That keeps the episode focused on structure rather than hero worship. Root’s achievement is still the headline, but it is used as a doorway into wider questions. What does England want from its leaders? What should a vice captain be doing? And how much of this summer is skill, and how much is a team understanding its own shape? The episode keeps coming back to those questions. It is conversational, but it does not drift far from them. The result is a grounded cricket discussion that stays close to the evidence while still leaving room for a bit of teasing and self correction.

As heard by us

Root’s milestones, England’s leadership questions, and a panel that thinks out loud.

Joe Root’s double hundred is the obvious entry point, but the piece does more than linger on the scoreline. It uses England’s record-breaking Test, the five wins from five this summer, and the prospect of the Oval to open up a sharper discussion about where the side goes next.

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Want the record-breaking Lord's Test and the leadership debate that follows it?

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