9. Joe Root
Overall: 22,000 runs at 49.21 ave; 107 wickets
The great batters, so it is said, have more time in which to play the game. Root has always been a split-second ahead of the competition and even now, having ascended to second on the overall list of Test run-scorers, appears to have time on his side as a record-breaking career reaches its zenith.
Root seemed at ease on the international stage from the moment he walked out as a fresh-faced Test debutant in Nagpur and greeted Kevin Pietersen by drily enquiring, "Eh up, lad, what's happening?" Through the ups and downs of captaincy, and an England schedule that is rarely less than demanding, Root has approached each challenge with the same calm equanimity that characterises his batting.
A classical method, keen eye and deft touch are the key ingredients of a technique that has reliably harvested runs across formats and conditions. At one stage, the one major quibble of his detractors was that he scored too many fifties and not enough hundreds - a trend reversed in recent times when he has piled up runs while adding flourishes like the impudent reverse-scoop to his repertoire.
Root stands alone out in front for England: most runs and most hundreds in Tests and ODIs. He owns a 50-over World Cup winner's medal, as well as a Test five-for. He has played in a T20 World Cup final (and at the IPL) and taken more catches than any other man in Tests. All with a cheeky grin and boyish enthusiasm that remains undimmed.
Graeme Swann on Root: As an English batter, Joe Root is an excellent player of spin, which isn't normally the case. Joe is world-class against both, spin and pace. When he came on the India tour in 2012, I had barely seen him play, barely knew who he was; he looked about 12 years old. First time I bowled at him at the nets in Nagpur, where he would make his Test debut, I bowled two balls, and I didn't know how I was going to get him out. This kid was so easily playing with the full face of his bat out in front of his pad, reading the spin, reading the dip, I thought this lad was class. He actually was being guided to a maiden Test century in that match by me. While we were batting together I kept telling him: don't get out, don't go down the wicket, stay patient. He didn't listen to his batting mentor, Graeme Swann, and went down the wicket and got out for 70!
Simply put, in my opinion, Joe Root is the best player England have ever produced.
The greatest men's internationals: the list, jury and method
Stats are for the 2000-2025 period