
If not for injury, England's Test captain Ben Stokes would have been playing in the ongoing SA20. With the England Test team not having an assignment in January unusually, most of the players including Zak Crawley, ex-Test captain Joe Root, pacers Matt Potts, and Craig Overton among others who weren't part of the white-ball squad took part in the SA20. Root pulled off an all-timer of a season opening the innings for Paarl Royals, being the third-highest run-getter in the tournament in just eight matches, scoring 279 runs at an average of 55.8 and a strike rate of 140.5.
Hence, it is a surprise that Root hasn't played T20 cricket for England, especially since 2019. However, Root wasn't surprised as he explained the reasons behind it saying that the rise of the format and the T20 leagues around the world happened simultaneously with him becoming the Test captain and the only tie he got to rest was during the T20 assignments.
"It [the rise of T20s] coincided with becoming England captain," Root told ESPNCricinfo. "When you're the Test captain, the schedule that we have and the amount of Test cricket we play, and with there being the 50-over World Cup in 2019, a lot of the white-ball build-up was focused around getting ready for that. It meant that if I ever had a rest, I missed out on T20 cricket."
England almost play 10-12 Test matches a year and the Test specialists mostly get rested during the white-ball assignments unless there's a world tournament. Root reckoned that it wasn't anyone's fault but it's just so happened.
"Then other guys came in and performed exceptionally well and I found myself on the outside of the team in that format, and that's not anyone else's fault. It's just the way it panned out for me. It's nice now to get the opportunity to play the format again, and hopefully more and more in the future as well," Root added.
Root formed a magnificent partnership with Lhuan-dre Pretorius at the top for the Royals and laid the foundation for a win for the Men in Pink in at least three matches. Root himself was a top-scorer in a 200-plus run-chase against the Pretoria Capitals. Since Root was playing T20 cricket after a long time, Root mentioned that it was almost like learning on the job with the game having evolved so much in the last few years.
"I haven't actually played a lot, so it's been a case of trying to recall the things that you've done well and trying to do them as consistently as possible, but also understanding that your game evolves. The T20 format has also evolved a lot but you're playing the game of cricket and it's about problem-solving, just on a much quicker scale than what I've been doing the majority of the time," Root further said.
There were odd BBL stints, an IPL campaign, one season in the ILT20 and a few matches in the Hundred for the Trent Rockets but Root never had such a long campaign in a T20 tournament and SA20 really lucked out and vice-versa. Root left the SA20 midway for international duty with the ODIs against India and a Champions Trophy scheduled to take place in the next month or so.