Joe Root laughs as England teammate suffers ‘sickening’ Ashes injury

Ten years on from this eye-watering incident, Alastair Cook will still remember the crippling pain he went through.

But Joe Root wasn’t bothered, as he failed to hide his laughter following his fellow England star’s stroke of misfortune.

YouTube / Sky Sports Cricket

During the first Test of the 2015 Ashes series, Cook took a ball flush into the one area every man doesn’t want to take it.

The now-retired England captain was left writhing in pain on the grass following an edge from Australia’s Steve Smith.

Legendary bowler James Anderson whipped a delivery towards Smith, with the Aussie star clipping it to his right.

Cook was there waiting in the slips to catch, but as he prepared to take it, the ball dipped and bounced off the turf.

It meant the ball then flipped back up and caught him right in the groin, seeing him roll face down onto the ground.

Root was the first to reach Cook as he squirmed and grimaced, but without realising the severity, he laughed at the incident.

As his captain continued to look in serious pain, Root waved for medical attention and then started chuckling.

He then covered his mouth whilst looking at his other teammates, who also found the funny side of the moment.

Further replays showed him giggling later on too, but Root wasn’t to know that Cook would then be sidelined for almost an hour.

The England skipper carried on after a few minutes, but then a couple of balls later, he was still in a lot of pain.

YouTube / Sky Sports Cricket

YouTube / Sky Sports Cricket

So, he ended up leaving the field to an applause from fans before not returning to the Test match for another 40 minutes.

Before he re-entered, he shared a laugh with some of the supporters as he waited for an appropriate break in play.

‘A sickening sound’

Australian cricketer Chris Rogers was right in front of Cook’s unfortunate incident and described his view.

Rogers said: “I saw it pretty clearly actually. I was trying not to laugh.

“Particularly when I saw Joe Root laugh, I thought ‘Oh, he’s okay.’

“But apparently it was a sickening sound, so we’ll leave it at that.”

Cook’s revenge

Six years after Root laughed at Cook, the latter managed to get his own back in a similar fashion.

Root was painfully struck in the nether regions, just as his old captain was, in the second Test of the 2021 Ashes.

A Mitchell Starc ball left him down in a heap and Cook was coincidentally watching on whilst doing punditry for TV.

“I would love to say what goes around comes around!” he joked.

“But I was okay,” Cook followed up. “I’ve had two children since.

“I don’t know how Rooty is at the moment.”