Incident with David Warner made me who I am today: Joe Root

Joe Root was handed in the Test captaincy of the England team as Alastair Cook stepped down. He revisited his fight against Australia’s David Warner in June 2013. The fight took place at a bar because of a misunderstanding. It was 2 AM and Root was having fun with his mates when the Australian opener misleadingly thought that Joe Root was making fun of South African Hashim Amla, as he was rocking a fake beard at the moment.

Warner assaulted him over the same and only later did he realise that the then young Root was making fun of his own beard. However, after the incident, Root was termed as ‘more like the Milky Bar Kid than Mike Tyson’ by his Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale.

Root was trying to make of his own lack of facial hair by donning a fake beard. When asked about the same by The Mail, he stated that he gained experience from it. He believes that he still has the sense of humour he had then. He said: “That incident did make me reassess things a bit. You learn from those experiences and you try to make sure you don’t put yourself or your team-mates in similar scenarios.

“I still like to think I have a pretty good laugh with the other guys in the dressing room and still enjoy a beer and the odd night out. You have to enjoy winning and being part of a successful team, just being a young bloke,” he further added.

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Root is also the one who would like to be on the back pages of the newspaper rather than being on the front page for dubious reasons. “But at the same time, you want to be back page and not front page news and be spoken about for your cricket and contributing to winning rather than getting it wrong on a night out,” Root was quoted saying by The Mail.