Joe Root: Brilliant coach Peter Moores got the best out of me

England player of the year embarrasses Strauss by praising former coach

England batsman Joe Root celebrates after reaching his century against Sri Lanka in the first Test at Lord’s last year (GETTY IMAGES)

In case anybody was running away with the idea that Peter Moores was an abject failure as England’s coach, their player of the year begged to differ yesterday. Joe Root could hardly have sung his praises more volubly had he hired a choir and a cathedral to help him.

“He was good to work with, a brilliant coach,” said Root. “He knew how to get the best out of me personally, and I really hope he goes on to do other great jobs within the game.”

Root credited Moores almost entirely with improvements in his game following an Ashes tour on which he was eventually dropped. Under Moores’ stewardship, Root has been England’s leading scorer in both Test and one-day cricket since the beginning of last summer.

He made 1,135 Test runs at an average of 94.58 and 949 one-day runs at 41.26. It was a remarkable ascent to maturity which has made him England’s most dangerous batsman and last week persuaded the new director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, to make him vice-captain. Root seems almost surprised himself by the advances in his game.

“I think it has improved drastically, really,” he said. “A lot of credit for that has to go to Peter Moores. Over the past year he has definitely got the best out of me.

“When I came back from Australia I realised that a lot of the time out there I was trying to work on things I wasn’t too good at, and putting all my energy into that rather than spending more time strengthening the stuff I am good at.

“Obviously I could still try to tweak things I can improve on, but I just needed to make sure I did more of what I could do well, so I didn’t lose those. Peter saw that.”

Root confessed that he was sad to see Moores depart and his encomium is bound to be slightly embarrassing for Strauss. Even before he was officially installed, it became known that Strauss was sacking Moores and he later made it clear that he thought Moores’ tactics as international coach were exposed.

Root clearly thinks a little differently and he may not be alone among England’s established players. This could make it difficult both for any new coach appointed by Strauss to have an immediate influence, and for Strauss to persuade someone to take the job.

The favourite for the role remains Jason Gillespie, the Australian who has been instrumental in Yorkshire’s renaissance. Root and the other Yorkshire players would be more enamoured of that than the appointment of a complete outsider.

“I would love to work with him again,” Root said. “I think he is brilliant to work with. At Yorkshire he has been fantastic in my development. He took over when we were in Division Two and we’d had a really poor season the year before, so the work he has done with the lads is fantastic. If he did get it, I’m sure he would do a very good job at the highest level too.”

Root gently repulsed the obligatory questions about Kevin Pietersen, though it was noticeable he did not speak about Pietersen in the glowing terms he had Moores.

“There’s no point answering, to be honest, because the decision has been made already,” said Root. “As a player you have responsibility to be 100 per cent professional, whether you are representing England or whoever. I think it’s quite irrelevant, if you don’t mind me saying so, because there is nothing we can do about it.”

Root was presented with his award at the annual England Cricket awards dinner at Lord’s last night after finishing ahead of Jimmy Anderson, Moeen Ali and Gary Ballance in a media poll.

The women’s award went to the durable captain, Charlotte Edwards, for the second successive year. She averaged 75 in one-day matches, almost 60 in Twenty20 and led England to four series victories in all. Edwards was also presented with a silver cap for leading England in 200 matches.

Saqib Mahmood, a seam bowler from Lancashire, won the England development player award and Luke Sugg, from the visually impaired side, was the disability cricketer of the year.