...and he urges exhausted Root to give up Twenty20

JOE ROOT will be urged to give up on the Twenty20 game by England coach Trevor Bayliss so the Test captain can focus his efforts on building towards the next Ashes series Down Under in 2021-22. The England coach wanted Root, who ended up in hospital on the last day of the latest Ashes suffering from gastroenteritis and exhaustion, to miss the T20 tri-series against Australia and New Zealand next month to have a much-needed rest. But Root is insistent that he wants to play in the shortest form of the game and will almost certainly add even more to his workload by putting his name forward for the Indian Premier League draft later this month. ‘We had that discussion a few days ago and I suggested to Joe that he shouldn’t play in the tri-series and have a break,’ said Bayliss as Root recovered at England’s Sydney hotel. ‘But he feels whenever he’s had a break, it’s always been a Twenty20 series and he wants to play in 50-over and T20 World Cups. ‘He believes that if he misses all the T20 cricket over the next year or so, he won’t be up to speed when the world tournaments come along. ‘We’ll be chatting with him again. There are difficult decisions to make.’ The problem England and Bayliss have is that Root, along with all their best players, does not want to miss out on the millions on offer in the IPL. ‘There’s so much cricket now it is hard to be playing in all formats,’ said Bayliss. ‘You’ve got to be Superman to do it. Separation of the two teams is happening because guys find it difficult to put up with it.’ Bayliss admits there is little he can do other than advise Root to look after himself if he wants to fulfil his aim of still being England Test captain when they return to Australia in four years’ time. He said: ‘Possibly Joe will miss more England games going forward, but he does play a few county matches and that’s another thing to look at. ‘Maybe we will look at it and decide he shouldn’t play county matches before Tests.’