Joe Root backs England Test team to bring in new cricket audiences

After England came from behind to beat South Africa 2-1 in the final series of the summer – three matches across which they scored at 4.09 runs per over, a figure only exceeded in their entire history by the 4.54 they reached when New Zealand were beaten earlier this summer – Joe Root believes his team are making Test cricket so exciting that the Hundred might end up redundant.

When the Hundred was announced in 2018 the then England and Wales Cricket Board chair, Colin Graves, said it was required because “the younger generation, whether you like it our not, are just not attracted to cricket”, because “they want something different, they want it more exciting, they want it shorter”. But Root believes this England team is different and more exciting – while those in search of shorter cricket will have enjoyed a South Africa series that ranks, in terms of balls bowled, as the second-shortest three-Test series since 1896, with its deciding match the shortest completed Test played in England in 110 years.

“There’s been a lot of talk about the Hundred as a great opportunity to get people into the game,” Root said. “Well, there’s no reason why Test cricket can’t do that. You turn up and watch Ollie Pope try to reverse sweep a 6ft 8in bowler to win a Test match. You’ve got guys running in and bowling spells like Ollie Robinson has, and Jimmy [Anderson] and [Stuart] Broad did. I’d like to think people will want to tune in and watch that and get involved in cricket through this format as well.

“There was a moment at Trent Bridge [when England beat New Zealand in June] when me and Zak Crawley sat down with a crossword in the last session. We did one answer and within three overs we’d put the book down and couldn’t take our eyes