Joe Root hits back at Darren Lehmann after criticism: ‘I’ll do my job and he can do his’

Joe Root has hit back at Darren Lehmann after the former Australia head coach said that the England batter was not an “all-time great”. Root goes into the series against New Zealand ranked as the world’s number one Test batter but found himself at the centre of an early start to the traditional Ashes war of words this week. Former Australia batter Lehmann, commentating on TV in Australia this week, declared that Root was a “rung below” contemporaries Virat Kohli , Kane Williamson and Steve Smith due to the lack of a Test century Down Under.

“That’s the only thing stopping Joe Root,” Lehmann told ABC. “He’s a great player, but is he an all-time great? I don’t have him in that realm.” Root, who has more Test runs and more Test centuries than his fellow members of the so-called ‘big four’, was unmoved by the comments.



“My job is to score runs, right? His job is to give his opinion and talk on the radio,” he said. “I’ll do my job and he can do his job. He’s completely entitled to say what he wants.

I’ve not spoken to him for a while but, like I said, he’s got a job to do. That’s his right.” Root hopes England and New Zealand can provide a “humdinger” of a series in honour of the late Graham Thorpe and Kiwi great Martin Crowe.

The teams will compete over the next three Tests for ownership of the newly-minted Crowe-Thorpe Trophy, fashioned out of wood taken from bats belonging to the pair. Thorpe took his own life earlier this year .