“I played my first game of adult cricket at about eight or nine when the fifth team were short and picked me to field and bat at No 11. From then I just got the bug and wanted to play as often as possible.”

English international cricketer, born 1990

Joe Root is an English international cricketer, born in 1990. He plays Tests and ODIs for England, represents Yorkshire in domestic cricket, and has been reappointed captain of the Test side, after first leading it from 2017 to 2022. Root is known as a prolific run-scorer and, by March 2026, had become the leading scorer among active batsmen, England’s highest run-scorer, and the second-highest run-scorer in Test history. He was part of England’s 2019 Cricket World Cup-winning team, where he scored the most runs for England, and he has topped the ICC Test batting rankings ten times.