Root must give up captaincy, says Warne  

Former Australian spinner Shane Warne believes England batsman Joe Root will have to give up captaincy in order to become the world’s best willow-wielder. According to the legendary former spinner, the England Cricket Board must relieve the pressure of Root and consider wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler for the skipper’s role.

Joe Root is widely regarded as one of the best in the business with the bat. He averages above 51 in both ODIs and Test Cricket. The baby-faced run machine has amassed 6,279 runs in 74 Test matches and 4,825 in 117 One Day Internationals. However, he is not short of competition. The likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Kane Williamson and the currently banned Steve Smith are in the same bracket of run-getters.

Although he outclassed everyone else in the limited overs series against India, Root only managed a fifty and a century in 10 innings in the longer format, where Kohli upstaged the rest by scoring heavily for his side.

Warne, who is not only aware of Root’s batting potential but also Buttler’s leadership qualities, feels the ECB needs to take a few steps.

“He'd love to have more hundreds to be able to be spoken about in the same sentences as Virat Kohli and Steve Smith,' Warne opined.

Warne, who took just over 1,000 international wickets, added: 'Maybe England could think about their best player having the shackles off, not having the responsibility of captaincy, and give it to someone like Jos Buttler.

'If he (Root) totally 100 percent concentrates on his cricket, his batting and nothing else, then maybe we might see Joe Root become the best batsman in the world. He's got the talent to do it.'

Speaking of Buttler’s captaincy, he remarked: 'I've worked with Jos a bit this year, and I think he's someone who would make an excellent captain. I really enjoyed working with him, I'd like to think I helped him out a little bit.”

England, who are on their tour of Sri Lanka at the moment, take on the Lankan Lions in the second of five ODIs on 13 October.