Charles Frederick Root (16 April 1890 - 20 January 1954) was an English cricketer.
Fred Root was born in Somercotes , Derbyshire, and played his early first-class cricket for that county, making his debut in 1910. He played for five seasons for Derbyshire before cricket was suspended in England because of World War I. Root was hit in the chest while serving as a despatch rider, but recovered and resumed his cricketing career after the war.
Moving to Worcestershire in 1921, Root became an exponent of the leg theory style of bowling, and achieved great success with it, taking at least 100 first-class wickets in every season from 1923 to 1931 inclusive. Eight times he topped the English bowling averages, and in 1925 he took 207 wickets for Worcestershire, which remains a county record. Root also still holds the Worcestershire record for an innings analysis, having taken 9-23 against Lancashire in 1931.
Although first and foremost a bowler, Root was also a useful batsman, and in 1928 did the "double" of scoring 1000 runs and taking 100 wickets in the same season. However, he only once scored a first-class century.
Root played three Test matches for England, all against Australia in 1926. He had only moderate success and was not selected for his country again. However, he remained a keen observer of the international game, and was unimpressed by Australian protests against Bodyline, saying that their players should stick to playing with tennis balls if they could not learn how to play it.
After his retirement from the first-class game in 1933, Root spent some time as coach to Leicestershire, and also continued to play club cricket in the Lancashire League. He also wrote about cricket.
Root died in a Wolverhampton hospital in 1954.
