Having gone through widespread criticism for his batting performances in the recently concluded five-match Test series against India, England captain Joe Root has said that he is extremely determined to take things forward from his dominant 125 in the last Test at the Oval and turn around his fortunes in the winter coming up. Root also reiterated that leading the country has had no directly negatively impact on his batting prowess. 

Joe Root was even suggested to give up on the leadership responsibilities so as to better focus on scoring runs for the three lions, but one of the best batsmen in the world thinks differently. 

“No, not at all. I think this summer batting at three was playing on my mind a little bit more than anything else,” said Root, who is now looking forward to the three-Test tour of Sri Lanka in November, "The surfaces we were playing on made it very difficult at the top of the order: it was seaming and swinging for high-quality bowlers," he stressed and added, "There are always going to be question marks if you are not scoring the runs you have in the past or that you would like to, there is always going to be a reason behind it."

“I know what I need to do score runs. I felt like I overcame that at the back-end of the series against India and now I am ready to try and kick on,” he signed off. 

(Inputs from ICC)