Nasser Hussain names “exceptional” Joe Root as England’s best ever batter

Nasser Hussain has delivered his verdict on the five best England batters that he has ever seen, with Joe Root ranked number one

Nasser Hussain believes Joe Root is the best England batter he has ever seen, ranking him above the likes of Graham Gooch, Sir Alastair Cook, David Gower and Kevin Pietersen.

Root recently became just the 14th player to score 10,000 Test match runs, reaching the milestone with a brilliant match winning hundred in the first Test against New Zealand. He then followed that up with a stunning 176 in the second Test, continuing a glorious run of form that has seen him score ten Test centuries since the start of 2021.

And Hussain believes Root will go on to surpass Cook as England’s all-time leading Test run scorer. Having been asked to rank the five best ever English batters, Hussain chose Root as the greatest.

“I’m selecting from those I have seen and, yes, Joe Root has gone to the top now,” he told the Daily Mail. “He has just taken his game to exceptional levels in difficult circumstances over the past 18 months.

“Joe has this great rhythm and looks to score all the time in a beautifully controlled way. Now he is regularly converting half-centuries into three figures, he will go on to break Sir Alastair Cook’s England record and who knows how many others.”

Second on Hussain’s list was Gooch, who he described as a “tough, over-my-dead-body batter” that was “ahead of his time”. Cook came in just behind Gooch in third, with Hussain praising his mental toughness as “second to none”.

Gower, Hussain’s childhood idol, was fourth on the list. “He was so elegant and graceful,” he added.

“I’d heard about his timing and seen him on TV but then I played against him at Leicestershire and he just leant on one and before I moved at cover point it hit the boundary.” Pietersen rounded out the top five, with Hussain describing him as “incredibly watchable”.

He said: “That Twitter account, KP Genius, summed up Kevin Pietersen because that’s what he was. He would play remarkable innings and would target the opposition’s best bower.”