Root signals intent to continue as England captain

Joe Root wants to continue as England captain, he said on Sunday, minutes after his team suffered an emphatic defeat to West Indies in the deciding third Test of the series in Grenada.

Even before the West Indies had secured the series 1-0 after draws in the first two Tests, commentators were questioning whether Root would want to continue as captain after five years in the role. But Root himself was adamant about his position after their 10-wicket defeat.

“I think I’ve made it quite clear how I feel about this team,” he said. “I’m very passionate. I feel I’ve got the support of the men behind me to take the team forward. That’s not changed at all.”

Earlier, former England bowler Steve Harmison suggested Root should step down. “For his own sanity he needs to have a long think about what he does with his future,” Harmison said during TV match commentary.

Although one of the world’s best batters, with a Test average of nearly 50, Root has rarely looked like a natural leader and has earned a reputation as unimaginative.

Harmison, though, said that for all the talk of Root’s tactical nous in the field, or lack of it, he was hardly to blame for England’s frequent struggles with the bat. “It’s not his fault we keep crumbling under pressure and lose 10 wickets in a session,” he said.

Root acknowledged the poor top-order batting performances in Grenada. “I don’t think we quite read the surface as well as we could have individually,” he said.

“We didn’t get to grips with it out here this week. We have made some big strides in that department but there is a lot of work still to be done.”

The Caribbean series loss against a lowly West Indies team ranked eighth in the world comes on the heels of a 4-0 drubbing by Australia in the Ashes.

Former England captain Michael Atherton said Root should step down. “As was obvious to anyone who was in Australia, and should have been obvious to anyone who wasn’t, Root has reached the end of the road as captain,” Atherton wrote in The Times.

“A change will not cure all ills — this is a poor team and England are paying the price for the neglect of the first-class game — but there simply comes a time when a captain has nothing new to say, no new methods of motivating his players and a different voice or different style is required.

“He had reached that point at the end of the Ashes and nothing has changed.”

Another former skipper, Nasser Hussain, said it is time for a change. “The England captaincy was the best job in the world and it is not one you keep doing simply because there is a perception no-one else is capable of taking over,” Hussain wrote in the Daily Mail.

“We’re talking about the England captaincy. It is too important for that.”

Michael Vaughan said England would lose nothing by replacing Root as captain. “What are we going to miss? We are not going to miss his runs because he will keep scoring those,” the former skipper wrote in The Telegraph.

“Are we going to miss his tactics in the middle? No.”

Some pundits have speculated that Root remains captain because nobody else apart from perhaps Ben Stokes is guaranteed a spot in the team, and Stokes has not expressed any interest in the role.

But England have won only one of their past 17 Tests overall, and it remains to be seen whether their new MD and head coach, whoever they turn out to be, back Root continuing as captain.

Root acknowledged that no matter how much he wants to lead England for a busy home summer of Tests starting in barely two months, it may not be up to him. “I don’t think it is ever in your hands completely,” he said.

Reuters