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Fresh from becoming a father of two, Joe Root will be reinstalled as England captain on Thursday with his team in very familiar territory.

With Root absent so he could be with his wife for the birth of their second child, England lost the first Test against the West Indies last week in what was the first international cricket match since the sport's shutdown because of the coronavirus outbreak.

It leaves England with a bizarre record of having lost the first Test in eight of the team's last 10 series.

So, after some time away from camp, is Root any closer to putting his finger on why these slow starts keep happening? "No," Root said Wednesday in a video call for his pre-match news conference.

"It's quite frustrating - you don't want to be behind, you want to put a marker down early. The pleasing thing is there have been times when that's been the case and we've still come out and won the series. That's the challenge now."

England's players and coaches discussed that very issue after the loss in Southampton on Sunday, with some confidence generated from the fact that the team came from 1-0 down to a win 3-1 in a Test series in South Africa around the turn of the year.

With the series against the West Indies being only three Tests, England has to bounce back immediately and Root's return is clearly a positive.

The captain will take the place of Joe Denly, who made 18 and 29 in his two innings at the Rose Bowl and was fighting with Zak Crawley to keep his spot for the second Test at Old Trafford.

Crawley had England's highest single score with 76 in the second innings.

There is likely to be a change in the bowling attack, too, with Stuart Broad pushing for a recall after being dropped for the first Test - and then speaking publicly about his disappointment during the match.

There has been rain in Manchester and Root described the wicket as having a "nice brownish colour."

Root briefly handed over the captaincy to Ben Stokes for the first Test, but did have some input in selection and decision-making despite his parental duties at home.

He said he managed to watch most of the match, except for when he "had to go and hit some balls myself."

"You want to be there and you want to be involved," Root said, "and after playing 80-odd games on the bounce, it was hard to sit there and watch knowing you can't really affect things."