Root praises side’s pride and passion
JOE ROOT last night saluted his side’s ‘pride and passion’ after their much-needed innings win. And the England captain admitted that the desire to prove critics wrong played a part — a reference to former captain Michael Vaughan’s pre-match suggestion that England should consider dropping Stuart Broad or Jimmy Anderson. ‘It was a very tough last week,’ said Root. ‘We had to show a lot of character. I asked the group to play with pride and passion, and everything I asked was delivered out on the field. ‘You want to prove people wrong, and you have to have that within you to play at this level. We’ve seen that with the two bowlers this week. That’s why they are recordbreakers for this country. ‘But it’s very important we don’t paper over the cracks. We have to make sure we don’t find ourselves in those positions like last week.’ England’s victory halted a run of eight games without a win, six of which ended in defeat. And it eased pressure on Trevor Bayliss, whose future as Test coach would have come under further scrutiny had his team lost at home to an inexperienced Pakistan ranked seventh in the world. As he had before the game, Root came to his coach’s defence. ‘Trevor’s the easy target when the side’s losing,’ he said. ‘After Lord’s, it would have been easy to get tense and have a negative feel around the guys. But Trevor’s experience pulled through.’ Bayliss spoke with his usual calm, but was in little doubt of the importance of the result. ‘It’s about how we can put in that type of performance more often,’ he said. ‘It might be a case of having to remind the guys what it’s like to be embarrassed in one game if we don’t keep focused.’ Root’s opposite number Sarfraz Ahmed had to come to terms with falling well short of the standards Pakistan set in the first Test. He said: ‘At Lord’s, everything was perfect. It’s disappointing that we had a chance to win the series, but we didn’t play well here. I am still proud of my young team.’
RECALLING Jos Buttler for this series has been a massive tick for new national selector Ed Smith. It was a left-field pick because Buttler had been playing in the Indian Premier League, with very little red-ball cricket for Lancashire of late. It was a move very much down to Smith, but his decision has been vindicated here and at Lord’s. The most notable thing is that Buttler has not been playing in one-day mode. He has just played normal, sensible cricket and adapted to situations. The only time he possibly strayed from that path was in the first innings at Lord’s, when he teed off a little early, but in the second innings there he realised that Dom Bess could bat and ever since he has just played naturally. I can understand why Smith sees him as leadership material, too, because Jos is such a smart cricketer. In the one-day games when he has deputised for Eoin Morgan as England skipper, he has always proved a cool customer. Buttler went on the attack yesterday at exactly the right time, because he realised Stuart Broad would not hang around long — and in whatever format he is playing, Jos invariably takes the right option at the right time. He set a trend in this series because at Lord’s he was the only England batsman advancing down the track to the Pakistan seamers, trying to take lbw out of the equation against Mohammad Abbas, and all the England players followed that example in this game. No game is over until the opposition have got Buttler out because he can do so much damage, but the issue England have is batting him at No 7 when he is not keeping wicket. That means he is only as good as the people following him in the order. It’s fine when you have Bess, Chris Woakes and Sam Curran, as we’ve had here, but England cannot have four London buses coming after him. He will just be stranded and even yesterday he was left high and dry on 80. One thing I would keep an eye on if I was England captain is how the return and success of Buttler affects Jonny Bairstow. Here, Buttler has done well while Bairstow, moved up to No 5 and rightfully keeping the gloves, has only done OK. It’s a dynamic that Joe Root will have to monitor. Root will need to keep being positive with Bairstow. He must tell him how good he is at keeping to ensure his confidence remains intact.