JOE’S FAIRY-TAIL ENDING Escape Root for England Last-wicket pair save day

UNLIKE Ben Stokes, who couldn’t bear to watch the final act on the final day, Joe Root was wide-eyed.

The captain looked around at his players at the end of the game and to a man he could see someone who had played their part in salvaging a draw, and pride, for the England Test team.

He called it a small step forward, because he did not want to go overboard on a last-ball draw where his team were nine down and in the mire.

But this result was far more than just a small step. It was the first step on the journey for a side that must now rebuild having been dismantled by Australia across the first three matches.

A nail-biting draw with your tail-end bowlers digging you out of a hole for more than 10 overs does not change the narrative but it stops the bloodletting.

It stops the confidence draining out of every player and allows you to think about the future possibilities.

And if Root is to continue as captain, as he clearly would like to, he will now be better placed to work out which players he would still like to see alongside him once this tour is over.

Players such as Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, the backbone of this whitewash-preventing draw, but who have hardly played for him in the last couple of years for a variety of reasons.

In the case of Stokes, he will always be picked when he is available, but Bairstow must make the Test team his priority.

Rest and rotation has to come from the one-day and T20 sides, where it is possible to get up to speed far quicker than it is for the demands of five-day cricket.

Stokes’ side injury may yet rule him out of the fifth Test in Hobart but Root is hoping he can play as a batsman only, from DEAN WILSON in Sydney

and it is no coincidence that his best performance after a lengthy lay-off in scoring 66 in the first innings here and 60 yesterday has come with some game time under his belt.

“The injury seemed to refocus him, when it came for him to bat,” said Root. “You could see that look in his eyes we’ve seen a couple of times before.

“It was difficult when you see one of your most influential players walk off the field, as he did, clearly in a lot of pain.

“But it was a wholehearted effort and his performance with the bat was more like a Ben Stokes near his best, which is a really exciting thing to see going into the last game.”

Bairstow, too, must become a central pillar once more in England’s five-day side. He has long been one of the best batsmen in the country and, until that is no longer the case, he simply cannot afford to be overlooked.

His 105-ball 41 in the second innings was just as important as his first-innings hundred. Doing it with a badly bruised thumb spoke volumes for his mental toughness – something that cannot be measured by algorithm.

“You could clearly see how much meant to him,” said Root.

“He showed a lot of character, having to deal with taking a spicy one on the finger and he was rewarded for all the hard work he has put in.”

There were other key performers such as Zak Crawley, who made 77 and has to be invested in.

So, too, Jack Leach – not for his brave batting at the death but for his bowling which finally resembled that of a Testclass spinner.

Changes are still coming for this Test side but perhaps fewer than this time last week. it was always going to take a good performance to get the draw and I’m really proud of the way that the guys have managed to do that.

“The guys could all see a number of the players hurting physically and still putting in a huge amount.

“In many ways it lifted the rest of the group and I’m really proud of the way they stood at times, while clearly in a lot of pain, to produce for England.

“To be able to perform at the level that some of the guys did was phenomenal and shows a huge amount of character in some quite difficult circumstances.”

Aussie skipper Pat Cummins was left to rue what might have been, having delayed his declaration the evening before when several pundits thought he had batted on too long for extra runs.

But Cummins explained his thinking, before admitting how much he had loved the experience on day five.

“I wanted to set England about three and a half an over,” he said. “I thought 110 or so overs at that rate still gave them a bit of a cherry to chase if a couple of batters got in.

“Having a lot of runs on the board meant we could get pretty creative.

‘‘We got close but not close enough. It was a lot of fun – I loved it.”