Joe Root has described England’s white-ball problems as “the perfect storm” after they were beaten by South Africa in the first of the three-game one-day international series, a fifth reverse in seven matches at home this summer.
Root top-scored with 86 as England were bowled out for 271 at the Riverside on Tuesday to lose by 62 runs, but said he was “not too concerned” at following series defeats against India in 20- and 50‑over formats with another setback.
England are dealing with injuries, a wildly congested schedule, a lack of form among key players and a hot, dry summer that is producing wickets and playing conditions unlike those normally faced in this country, all while being led by a new captain. But Root, the former Test captain, insisted none of these issues is genuinely serious, and that the second game at Old Trafford on Friday is more likely to see his side end the sequence than prolong the agony.
“Our dressing room has got quite a lot of experienced players that, like myself, have been through it and seen the lowest of the low,” he said.
“We know how quickly things can change, so I’m not too concerned. It’s like that Chumbawamba song, you get knocked down and you get up again. That’s exactly how we’ve got to go about things.
“The schedule is hard, it is, but as a player you can’t really change it. So if you want to play you crack on, unfortunately. With games coming quite thick and fast, it gives you an opportunity to put anything you want to improve straight into a match scenario. It’s another opportunity for us to do that when we turn up at Old Trafford.”
That will be the team’s first game after the retirement from 50-over cricket of Ben Stokes, Root’s great friend and his replacement as Test captain, and the Yorkshireman criticised a schedule that makes it difficult for any individual to play in all three formats. “I want to play as much as I can, as often as I can, but the schedule makes it very hard for players to do that,” he said. “It’s sad in many ways that Ben’s had to come to this decision.
“You want to see your best players playing as many formats and you don’t want to dilute the product. But credit to him for being able to come to that decision and understanding himself so well, his body and the responsibilities he now has as England captain. It just shows how much he cares about not just his own career but the team. I really hope he reaps the benefits from this in the other two forms.”
One issue Root considers completely insignificant is the captaincy, despite the poor results that have followed Eoin Morgan’s international retirement and the passing of that responsibility to Jos Buttler.
“I know Jos has got a great cricket mind, he understands this game brilliantly. He’s going to be a great captain. I don’t think these results are a fair reflection on the way that he’s going about his business as a leader. Sometimes it does take time for things to bed in. I don’t think it will take that long with Jos.”
As well as playing on what Root described as “very unusual white-ball wickets for England”, one reason why the team have seemed to approach the ODIs as if complete strangers to the format is that in relative terms that is what they have become. In 21 years between the start of 1999 and the end of 2019 England averaged 22 50-over games a year, with a low of 14 in 2001 and a high of 34 in 2007. Since then they have not got into double figures, playing nine in 2020 and 2021 while the match on Friday will be their eighth game of this year.
“I just think that we haven’t had a lot of the format,” Root said. “We’ve had a very busy schedule. There’s still a lot of players that aren’t available for selection at the minute through injury. And in the last series, you didn’t have big senior players step up with performances, like myself.
“It’s like the perfect storm of everything coming together. And when it doesn’t go well it’s really important that you stay strong, you stick to how you want to approach things as a group, and you fully believe it and back it. We’ve shown that we can do that before and I’m very confident we’ll be doing that again in the near future.”
