Root has to be much smarter

A LOt of blame is falling on white-ball cricket for making england increasingly weak in the test arena, but game management remains a simple matter of intelligence. When Joe Root was struck on the right index finger by a ball from trent Boult in the final over of the fourth day in Auckland, the smart move would have been to temporarily retire, seeking treatment. By the time his injury was inspected on the pitch, there was time for no more than the two balls left of that day’s play. Allow Craig Overton to see them out, head back to the hutch and reemerge the following morning, fresh and rested. instead, Root stayed put and was dismissed next ball, england’s hopes of saving the match going with him. there was a decent bit of tailend resistance on the last day, but it was always likely to be in vain without the captain. had Root been available, who knows? New Zealand needed three wickets with just over 30 overs remaining. make that four wickets and an unlikely, undeserved escape could have been on — particularly if one of the players still at the crease was the captain. this is nothing to do with the one-day game sapping technique, resilience or strategic thought. it was a purely rotten call. if Root is to achieve anything as england captain, he has to be smarter than this. ONE of the things Gareth Southgate should call a moratorium on before the World Cup is the ceaseless charting of his players’ appearances at club level. Not form, because form matters — but when they play, if they play, how many minutes they play, and whether this means they are overcooked or under-prepared. England players are either one or the other. They’re never just right, like the Goldilocks of international football — this one’s playing too much, this one’s not playing enough — and it just stacks up excuses for failure. One moment, it was feared Marcus Rashford could be burned out, now we worry he is lacking game time. Similarly, if it really matters whether Joe Hart is in West Ham’s team, then we might as well let England be run by a committee of 20 Premier League managers, because Southgate’s preferences are irrelevant. It is what it is: just get on with it.