Harry Brook has revealed that Joe Root was never considered for England’s squad for the Twenty20 World Cup.
The 35 year old has underlined his white ball quality with scores of 51, 75 and an unbeaten 111 in England’s one day international series victory in Sri Lanka.
Root remains one of the game’s finest players of spin and his form prompted discussion over whether England were missing an option by leaving him out of next month’s Twenty20 World Cup, co hosted by India and Sri Lanka.
Root accepted after Tuesday’s series clinching win in Colombo that he is a “long way off” England’s Twenty20 plans, having last played in the format for his country in 2019.
Asked whether Root had ever been in contention for the World Cup squad, England captain Brook said: “Probably not, no. He’s obviously such a phenomenal player.
“In all conditions he’s done it everywhere. Unfortunately he wasn’t quite in the mix.”
England travel to Pallekele near Kandy on Wednesday ahead of a three match Twenty20 series that begins on Friday. Their World Cup campaign starts in Mumbai on February 8.
The 53 run win in Colombo sealed a 2-1 series victory and marked only England’s second success across their past eight one day international series.
Brook struck 136 from 66 balls, building on Root’s 20th one day international century.
The captain spoke with pride about his side’s response after losing the opening match, following a difficult winter that included a 4-1 Ashes defeat and a prolonged run of poor one day results.
“We obviously haven’t won many series away from home in recent times. It’s nice to get that monkey off the back. That can give us a hell of a lot of confidence going forwards.”
Brook and Root, both representing Yorkshire, shared a stand of 191 to lift England to their match winning total of 357 for three.
Brook hit nine sixes in his innings, accelerating from his half century to 136 in just 26 balls as Sri Lanka’s attack was overwhelmed.
