BRAVO, JOE, FOR GOING WITH THE FLOW!
A chaotic day for captain Root but he kept calm and carried on
Joe Root endured a chaotic, frenetic morning ahead of the first day of this final test but the england captain impressed me with his calm decision making.
the england captain had come to the ground early, with the bulk of the team staying at their hotel while it was raining, and that was absolutely the right thing to do because there was no point in them getting there too early and becoming bored.
then, when it cleared up and they arrived, the first thing Root would have seen was Mark Wood doing a fitness test because he was still feeling a little sore in his side after the third test. I saw Root ask him if he was fit and at one stage Wood was far from certain.
As if that wasn’t enough, then it became clear Jofra Archer was struggling and also had to have a fitness test. So the captain had to have the same conversation with him and he was clearly worried about getting through five days.
the day before the game, Root would have been thinking about having his fast bowlers playing on one of the quickest and bounciest pitches in the world and then, suddenly, it looked as though he would be without both of them.
the first morning of any test is a nightmare for a captain at the best of times because there is so much to think about. And it can only have been that much harder on a morning like this because so much was still up in the air.
that must have thrown Root and he was then faced with a difficult decision at the toss because it really was a 50-50 call. every 20 minutes I saw him having a look at this surface and he could see it was getting drier and drier.
It would have been easy, with the rain and both sides playing five seamers, to think it was a bowling day but Root would have seen cracks that could really open up here on days four and five. the forecast is for hot weather from day three and the pitch is getting drier very quickly so you don’t want to bat last here.
Also, england have won the last two tests batting first and Root would have been worried about repeating his mistake of bowling at Centurion, so I think he made the right call after winning yet another toss.
It all reminded me of the Ashes test at Headingley in 2009 when Matt Prior was injured in the warm-up and you could see the chaos was translated into Andrew Strauss’s decision-making and then his batting. Root stayed calm and was spot on in all he did.
that example was followed by england’s openers — with Zak Crawley and Dom Sibley spot on in all they did, too. I spoke yesterday about the importance of leaving the ball on length and they both got that absolutely right.
It made the South African attack bowl fuller and they pounced — driving the ball down the ground. Crawley, in particular, impressed me, showing he has an off- side game by playing four or five excellent cover drives.
He has been working with assistant coach Graham thorpe on opening up his bat face and staying a little more legside of the ball since Centurion and it all paid off here, with Crawley scoring at a good tempo.
the first time Crawley didn’t leave the ball that well on length came when he did try to leave at the last second but couldn’t get his bat out of the way in time.
But he was hugely impressive and that’s a tick for another young player on this tour to follow ollie Pope, Sibley, Dom Bess and Sam Curran. After looking for an opener for years since Strauss retired, england now have three — with Sibley, Crawley and Rory Burns all showing promise.
they were helped by South Africa’s attack lacking any kind of intensity in the first session. Captain Faf du Plessis or coach Mark Boucher must have had a stern word with them at the interval because they improved markedly.
But even though england lost four wickets in that last session, Root’s footwork was excellent and he stood firm to complete a day when he got every decision right.