Joe Root: Captaincy is not affecting my batting

England's Test captain has responded after Shane Warne made comments suggesting Root could give up the captaincy to concentrate on his batting

England's Test captain has responded after Shane Warne made comments suggesting Root could give up the captaincy to concentrate on his batting.

Asked by Sky Sports if the weight of captaincy was having an affect on his role as a batsman, Root was adamant that is not the case.

“No, not at all. I think this summer, batting at three was probably playing on my mind more than anything else.

“Obviously the surfaces we have been playing on have been very difficult at the top of the order. When it’s high-quality seam bowling like both sides had, it made it very difficult.

“There’s always going to be question marks if you’re not scoring the runs that you have in the past or that you would like to."

^{"Batting at three was probably playing on my mind more than anything else"}

Root - who averages 46.80 as skipper, and 52.80 without the captaincy - said his century against India at The Oval has given him a much-needed boost ahead of the winter.

“I feel like I overcame that at the back-end of the series getting the hundred in the last Test and now I am ready to kick on.

“It’s a new challenge on these surfaces. There’ll be a lot more spin, reverse-swing might come into it. It will be a different style of Test cricket. 

“I think more than anything it is about reacting to that, making sure we are prepared going into it but ultimately switching on very quickly to the different scenarios we find ourselves in.”