“I’ll do my job, and he can do his,” Root says about Lehmann

Joe Root has responded to Darren Lehmann’s recent comments, saying the former Australia coach is “entitled to say what he wants” after Lehmann claimed that Root is “a rung below” the all-time greats.

Root, 33, England’s leading Test run-scorer, is set to earn his 150th Test cap in the series opener against New Zealand this week. Lehmann made his remarks following Australia’s loss to India in the first Test in Perth, where Virat Kohli scored his 30th Test century and seventh in Australia. While Root has 35 Test centuries, he has yet to score a century in Australia.

Lehmann said, “That’s the only thing stopping Joe Root. He’s a great player, but is he an all-time great? I don’t have him in that realm.” Root, who has toured Australia three times for the Ashes, will get another chance to score a century there when England attempts to reclaim the Ashes next winter.

In Christchurch, Root responded to the comments, telling BBC Sport, “My job is to score runs, right? To turn up every game and do all I can out in the middle. His job is to give his opinion and talk on the radio.” Lehmann, 54, played 27 Tests for Australia and was their head coach for four of the Ashes series Root has played in.

Root acknowledged that he hadn’t spoken to Lehmann for a while but said, “I’ll do my job, and he can do his. He’s completely entitled to say what he wants. That’s his right.”

Following the backlash from his initial comments, Lehmann later clarified on X (formerly Twitter), “Just to be clear, there are a lot of people who think that I think Joe Root is not a great. He is going to be a great, I know that, and a wonderful ambassador for our game. But he needs and will probably do this next Ashes—get a hundred in Australia and then no dispute.”

Root, who surpassed Sir Alastair Cook as England’s all-time leading run-scorer in October with 12,754 runs, currently sits fifth on the all-time list behind Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, and Rahul Dravid.

Root is regularly mentioned alongside Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, and Steve Smith as part of the ‘Fab Four’ of modern Test cricket. Since 2022, Root has been in the best form of his career, accumulating 3,223 runs—more than any other player in that period—and scoring 12 hundreds.

This week, Root will become only the fourth Englishman to reach 150 Test caps, joining his former teammates Cook, James Anderson, and Stuart Broad. Reflecting on the milestone, he said, “It’s a lot of fielding, isn’t it? It’s really nice to have played as many games as that and still be going. In many ways, it feels like just another game. I’ve got a lot more to offer this team and this shirt. It will be nice to try to start the series well and get us off to a good start.”

The first match of the three-Test series starts at the Hagley Oval on Thursday (22:00 GMT, Wednesday).