England batting maestro Joe Root (AP Image)
Joe Root confirmed that England are not going to flip from their approach despite some of their decisions backfiring at Edgbaston.
England’s premier batter Joe Root assured that the team will continue to play with their attacking “Bazball’ approach in the remaining matches of the Ashes series despite losing the opening match. Under Ben Stokes’ leadership and Brendon McCullum’s guidance, England have adopted a fearless brand of cricket to play in the Test format which has worked well for them in the past few years but it backfired a bit for them against World Test Champions Australia in opening Test. In the thrilling series opener, Australia registered a nervy 2-wicket win to take an early 1-0 lead in the series.
It was a clash where both teams had equal chances to emerge victorious but a couple of decisions from Stoked raised some eyebrows which included an early declaration in the first innings.
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Day 5’s play started late with the first session getting washed out due to rain. It didn’t start out well for the visitors as England kept taking wickets at regular intervals to put Australia on backfoot. Australia were struggling at 227-8, still 54 runs shy of a victory target of 281, when skipper Pat Cummins was joined in the middle by tailender Nathan Lyon. The duo fought hard as after getting set Cummins hit boundaries at regular intervals to take Australia over the line.
Root suggested that the Edgbaston defeat was a bitter pill to swallow as England managed to push the game hard but ended up on the losing side.
“Naturally, (We are) a little bit disappointed, but as you mention, what a great Test match for 5 days, I think as a team, we played some really exciting cricket and pushed the game hard, pushed Australia hard for all of it. Really, it’s a bit disappointing to be on the wrong side of things,” Joe Root told England Cricket.
The former England captain said that the next four matches will bring the same excitement for fans as the hosts will continue to play with a fearless approach.
“I think it’s been a really important week for a number of different reasons, we showed how we intend to go out and play and how we backed up (the way) in a big series, even in an Ashes series that we will stay true to how we want to do it. I think that’s an exciting prospect for the next 4 games. Anyone coming in to watch the game will be thoroughly entertained. I think they should expect the same in the next 4 games,” Root added.
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England started the Test match with a boundary to kickstart the Ashes series on a high but they underestimated Australia a bit and declare the first innings for 393/8 with Root still in the middle.
However, Root confirmed that England are not going to flip from their approach despite some of their decisions backfiring at Edgbaston.
“Absolutely, we are going to be genuine and authentic to what we say we are about as a team, and that’s not going to flip. We are not going to fluctuate. Everybody should strap in because this week showed we are well in this series. There’s going to be some brilliant cricket to watch throughout and we want to make sure we are on the right side of it,” he added.
The 32-year-old said that England don’t judge themselves with the win but how they play on the field.
“I mean, obviously, everyone comes to a Test match to go and win it. But that’s not how we judge ourselves as a team. How we judge ourselves is how we go about things and how we play out cricket. We can proudly say that we have done that, we just needed a few things to fall in our favour, few half-chances up, we would found ourselves 1-0 up,” Root added.
