ENG vs IND | Living my boyhood dream of captaining England, says Root after overtaking Vaughan's record
Joe Root with former England captain Michael Vaughan
|Getty
After equalling Michael Vaughan's record for most Test wins as England captain, Joe Root declared that he is living his boyhood dream. England on Saturday defeated Virat Kohli's India by an innings and 76 runs to level the 5-match series 1-1 with the fourth Test to be played from September 2.
England defeated India by an innings and 76 runs and with this Joe Root surpassed Michael Vaughan's record of most Test wins as the Three Lions captain on Saturday. The 30-year-old now has 27 wins as captain from 55 matches. His fellow Yorkshireman won 26 out of the 51 Test matches as the skipper of the England Test team.
Joe Root led from the front and scored 121 in the first innings to help his team take a handy 354-run lead. The hundred was Root's sixth of this year and 23rd overall. The right-hander had slammed a hundred each in the first two Tests as well but his team failed to end up on the winning side. England's win at Headingley was their first in the format since they defeated India in the first Test in Chennai. The team played 7 Test matches following that handsome 227-run win at the Chepauk.
When asked about his feeling on becoming England's most successful Test captain, Root said that he is "living his boyhood dream".
"I'm living my boyhood dream, captaining England," Root said. "Something I dreamed of doing from being really small. Great group of players, who are very talented and dedicated to becoming better all the time.
"Couldn't be more proud, proud to have gone past Michael. But you don't do that on your own as a captain, it's down to the group of players and the coaching staff as well. It's all one big thing. You're the one making the decisions but they are the ones going out and time and time again putting in performances. And really proud of the way they have done that this week," Root told in post-match press conference.
It was almost the perfect storm: Root
Further, Joe root hailed the team effort, saying that everything fell in favour of England. He talked highly of openers Haseeb Hameed and Rory Burns, who stitched a century partnership, England's first for the wicket since 2016.
"It was almost the perfect storm, everything seemed to fall our way. Perfect little nicks to the keeper, got us off to a great start, it was a brilliant bowling performance. We found our lengths, exploited the wicket really well. And that opening partnership [between Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed] to set things up was almost a turning point in the game for me.
"A substantial first-wicket partnership was exceptional and credit to those two lads. Under the pump off the back of last week, to come out and perform like that and get us 135-0 was brilliant. Really set the game up and gave the rest of us the opportunity to go and make that big first innings score that me and Silvers harp on to you guys about all the time."
