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Andy Bull rhapsodises about someone standing up alongside Joe Root for a change.
All of which is another way of saying that the man who may be England’s greatest-ever batsman is playing in what is probably England’s weakest-ever batting line-up. They have put on 32 fifty-run partnerships this year, Root has been involved in 20 of them. They’ve put on 10 hundred-run partnerships, and Root has been involved in eight of those. He has scored six centuries, his 24 teammates have managed one. The business of captaincy, selecting teams, switching bowlers, picking out fields, managing people and handling the press is enough of a burden without the back-breaking load of carrying such a deadweight batting unit.
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