Root joins fight to save club cricket

England captain Joe Root has lined up to support The Daily Telegraph’s campaign to save grassroots cricket this summer, saying that he wants to see “common sense prevail” and club cricketers return to action. Root was joined by Andrew Strauss, a double Ashes winning captain, as well as Heather Knight, the women’s captain, in calling on the Government to lift its ban on recreational cricket. “Recreational cricket needs to return sooner rather than later,” Root said.

He is the youngest member of Boris Johnson’s cabinet and feted as one of the Government’s brightest stars.

Yet Robert Jenrick’s string of scandalous headlines have blotted a copy book that, up until his recent dealings with Richard Desmond and the Jockey Club, was virtually unblemished.

Born in Wolverhampton in 1982, Mr Jenrick attended the city’s grammar school before being accepted into St John’s College, Cambridge to study history.

After graduating with a first-class honours degree and studying politics in the US, he qualified as a solicitor in 2008.

He worked as a corporate lawyer in London and

Moscow, before becoming a director at Christie’s auction house and entering the world of politics in 2014.

The father of three rapidly rose through the ranks of the party and secured the largest swing of any Tory MP with a majority of 18,474 in the 2015 election.

Theresa May appointed him Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury in 2018, yet when her premiership started to fall apart, Mr Jenrick, 38, was swift to back Boris Johnson as her successor after befriending his fiancée Carrie Symonds.

His unwavering loyalty to the PM perhaps goes some way to explaining why No 10 has resisted calls for his resignation.