Former England cricket team skipper Michael Vaughan was not happy with former Australia head coach Darren Lehmann calling Joe Root “a rung below” Virat Kohli. Lehmann said that he rated Kohli higher than Root and even pointed out that Root has not scored a single century in Australia till now. The comments were made following Virat’s brilliant show in Perth as India won the first Test match against Australia. Lehmann called Root “a great player” but despite the batter scoring 35 Test centuries, the ex-Australia star said that he has not yet reached the “upper echelon” of cricketers.
“Joe Root is a great player, but is he an all-time great? He’s had four [three] goes in the Ashes, hasn’t made a hundred. A rung below for that reason. They’ve made runs all over the world in difficult conditions against different oppositions. And that’s the only thing stopping Joe Root. I think he’s a great player, but is he in that upper echelon?” Lehmann had said.
Vaughan was left fuming at the comments and he went on to call it “a load of nonsense”.
“What a load of nonsense,” Vaughan said on SEN Mornings in response to Lehmann’s claims. “
“We’re talking about a player that could quite easily – if he stays fit and that back stays strong – surpass Sachin Tendulkar in a few years.”
“Just because he’s not got a hundred here in Australia, this isn’t the be-all and end-all. You’d like to come here, and score runs. But he’ll come next year in the way that he’s playing in this England side now at four – playing the Joe Root way rather than the Bazball way – I’ve got a sneaky feeling that might come back to haunt Darren next year.”
“He might get a couple of hundreds next year and the way that England are playing, particularly against this Kookaburra ball, I think it’s going to be a great contest,” he added.