England player Joe Roots: England team is again in the news after the victory against Pakistan in Test cricket. Many of its players have performed very well. Meanwhile, insiders have told why Joe Root is back in ‘Bamby’ mode? The problem of him being LBW is also being discussed, which he is trying to fix. The nickname of this Disney character was given to him by his Yorkshire youth coach when his height grew rapidly during his adolescence and during that time he was out LBW several times. There was a sudden change in his height and he grew from being one of the smallest batsmen in the county to being over 6 feet tall. This had a strange effect on him. Joe Root told in his 2015 book ‘Bringing Home the Ashes’ that he felt himself growing at the crease. Batting guru Kevin Sharp gave him the name ‘Bambi’, but it affected his natural balance, increasing the chances of him falling at the crease. For this reason, batting guru Kevin Sharp named him ‘Bamby’ and the balls of the opposing bowlers of the seam-bowling County Academy often started hitting his pads. Due to his excellent batting ability and strong determination to succeed, Joe Root had overcome the problem of being LBW with the help of Sharp, but Root admits that this problem has come up again and again during his brilliant Test career. Kevin Sharp told ‘Daily Mail Sport’ that when he was made the captain of England for the first time a few years ago, he told me that he had worked for years to perfect the movement of the bowler before bowling the ball. He moves back a little and then stays on his front foot, but the coordination of all these things has to be right. If he is resting on his back foot and his front foot goes ahead of his back foot towards mid-off, he may block himself, which may throw him off balance.
Roots who are LBW again and again, let us tell you here that in the year 2021, the problem of LBW for Root came to the fore for the first time. This includes being out eight times in 13 innings. Late Graham Thorpe was then the batting coach of England. Before that, in 2016, there had been a period of getting out eight times in 15 innings. This time, since last winter’s Ashes, he has been out nine times in 12 innings, including seven consecutive dismissals. However, he was run out in the second innings against New Zealand at Trent Bridge. Having given assurance of recovery many times, Root, now 35 years old, said after the victory over Pakistan at Lord’s that there is a reason behind my scoring 14,000 runs and playing at this level for almost 15 years. Of course, it is disappointing that it has become a trend of sorts. Perhaps this includes the umpire’s decision (umpire’s call) four times, which could have gone the other way as well. The ball is probably moving more than ever before. You try to understand reality and know where things are, but you also need to know what to do to keep getting better. I am confident that I will overcome this. I am not too worried about it. Those close to Root know that it is difficult to imagine that he would not use the few days off he got this week to practice becoming more erect in his stance and placing his front foot more towards the stumps at the non-striker’s end. After all, he has maintained an average of over 50 in Test cricket because he has been one of the best solvers of the game. In the beginning, he was not even able to reach the ball. Batting guru Kevin Sharp says that his biggest weakness in the initial days was that he was not able to reach the ball properly and the ball would hit the edge of the bat and go to the wicketkeeper or slip, so keeping the front foot in the air helped him quickly come to the back foot and then move forward. Root’s LBW issue is part of a larger trend. This summer season has been dominated by skilled bowlers like Ollie Robinson. Because of this, the wicketkeepers have started standing near the stumps, due to which the chances for the batsmen to get out of the line by moving so far have reduced. This domestic international summer has seen a sharp increase in the number of dismissals due to LBW, with their number increasing by 77 percent in 2026 compared to 2021-25.