ROOT CAUSE OF DISASTER
Rookie England captain is buckling under the pressure as Aussie rival Smith prospers
The rain, much like england’s captain, promised much but again failed to deliver on day four in Perth. Three months’ worth in a day was promised but what blew through was little more than a shower, a metaphor for england’s general performance, and the 14 runs recorded by Joe Root.
Neither rain nor Root looked capable of saving england, although at least the precipitation improved its performance overnight and has another day to go at it. By comparison, Root’s chance is gone.
This was another dismal occasion in what is fast becoming a particularly dismal tour for the new captain. his team has been ill- disciplined off the field, and ineffectual on it. They haven’t listened to him or responded to the conditions. This Test is as good as gone and, weather permitting, with it the Ashes, too.
Yet if, finally, the deed gets done and the inquest into another heavy reverse on tour begins, one of the least expected items on the agenda will be the form of england’s captain and the toll his new role is taking on his game.
Root said before this Test that he had not expected the tour to be quite this challenging and certainly he has batted like a man worn down by the intensity and pressure of his mission.
It hardly helps, either, that at the opposite end is the John Terry of cricket captaincy in Australia’s Steve Smith. Returning to Terry a second time, former england manager Fabio Capello admitted he was the one player in the squad whose performances improved given the armband. So it has been with Smith. his batting average has soared since succeeding Michael Clarke and he records a century on aggregate every two Tests — 14 in 29 matches.
By comparison, Root’s return is shrinking with responsibility. he now has two centuries in 10 matches, and one in his last 17 innings. he is averaging 29.3 on this tour, which would not put him among the top eight Australia batsmen, a list that includes Pat Cummins, who bats at nine.
Yet this was supposed to be a head-to-head between two of the greatest batsmen in the world. Smith, Root and Virat Kohli are the names advanced for that title, yet the sad reality of this winter is that Root has been left behind by his Australian counterpart.
Yesterday was another of those occasions when england expected of its No 4, yet Root was quickly gone, edging Nathan Lyon to Tim Paine, who got lucky when his fumble merely teed the ball up to be caught by Smith at slip.
Lyon has been superb in this series, but it wasn’t annexcepmoved
exceptional delivery that removed england’s captain. Jamesames Vince was going well andnd arguably got the ball of thehe series from Mitchell Starcc to get him out.
If it was any consolation, had Smith received it as the first ball of his innings on Saturday, it would have produced a golden duck. It was as close to unplayable as a delivery gets.
There is no similar mitigation gad for Root. he departed the field as slowly as any batsmanatsman who has decided not to appeal.ppeal
It was as if he was replaying every mistake in his mind, like Bob hoskins in the last scene of
The Long Good Friday, before reaching the inevitable conclusion that he had been out-manoeuvred and could only accept his fate.
To what extent the captaincy has weighed on him on this tour can only be guessed at but, certainly, at this stage, he was not expected to be behind three Ashes rookies — Mark Stoneman, James Vince and Dawid Malan — in england’s averages. Root was the batsman who would be taking ththe game tot Australia.Atli Instead I this tour has taken his game from him.
he looks forlorn in comparison to Smith, an ugly batsman but one who has learned the art of survival under extreme pressure.
his momentous, game- changing, double-century innings was over very quickly yesterday, but the damage had long been done, england’s strength sapped, their confidence trampled into dirt.
Root has talked of executing plans against individual batsmen on the tour, but the waste basket in his hotel suite must be
brimming with crumpled pieces of paper detailing how to bowl to Smith.
It is no coincidence that the first chapter of Smith’s autobiography has a single word, and an exclamation mark as its title: ‘Adapt!’
It comes from a comment made by Smith’s father as he watched his son go 4-0 down in a junior tennis match against a considerably more experienced opponent. Smith says he looked for help to his dad, whose reply was to tap his head and utter a solitary word. Smith recalls he began playing backhand slices, top-spinners, running his opponent around, eventually winning the game. ‘ That sums up my life in cricket,’ Smith writes. ‘It is all about being able to adapt.’
So in this series, he has made Australia’s slowest Test century in seven years, and when circumstances demanded, also guided them to their highest innings score in an Ashes Test on home soil. He has adapted to leadership and its enormous demands in a way that has so far eluded Root.
It helps, of course, when a captain has the men for the job: genuinely fast bowlers, which England lack, a worldclass spinner, of the type England have been without since Graeme Swann retired.
Yet as Root played another bit part in a match in which he should be centre stage, the need to adjust to the demands of his job has never felt greater.
Nobody expected to rely on the rain to save England, certainly in Perth, but they did expect to rely on Root.