POSTER BOYS FOR A NEW ERA
Root and Stokes can now inspire this England team to strive for No 1 ranking after routing the Aussies
The big question for england now is whether t hey can use their spectacular Ashes hes triump has a springboard to become the best team in the world again. The answer lies in the continuing success of their two brightest young talents.
It is almost frightening to predict what Joe Root and Ben Stokes might achieve if fate smiles kindly on them and they avoid the pitfalls of injury and misfortune.
Nothing looks beyond the fresh-faced Yorkshireman who is already ranked the best batsman in the world and Durham all-rounder of such ability that he seems destined to soon become the biggest box- office attraction in world cricket.
Root and Stokes are now the heart and soul of a young side who have matured far more rapidly this summer than anyone, even their reinvigorated captain Alastair Cook, could possibly have imagined.
What rich entertainment should be in store with these two at the centre of a tight-knit group who suddenly, with a thrillingly unexpected Ashes victory wrapped up in just 14 days, have the cricketing world at theireir feet.
And what poster boys they have become for an exciting new era born out of the adversity of the l ast Ashes thrashing but now an england team totally ‘re-connected’ with a public who were-disillusioned after the 5-0 defeat 18 months ago.
The sight of england players spending a good hour walking around the Trent Bridge boundaries signing autographs and posing for pictures ahead of their celebrations on Saturday was evidence of a team at one with its supporters.
They were revelling in the accolades given for a quite astonishing victory in the fourth Test which saw Australia skittled out for just 60 runs in less than 19 overs in that heady first morning in Nottingham.
Root and Stokes, both 24, were in the thick of those on-field celebrations that were extended to the dressing room — showing, in their different ways, the personality and character that england coach Trevor Bayliss so desires.
There was Root the cheeky chappie donning an ‘old man’ mask, doing a passable impression of Bob Willis when i nterviewed by Sky’s Ian Ward and revelling in his thumbs up ‘Inbetweeners’ pose in pictures.
And then there was Stokes, the man with a bit of mongrel in him, who had taunted Australian supporters f or mocking his New Zealand heritage and then tweeted ‘to p*** or not to p***’ alongside a picture of the Trent Bridge pitch.
Stokes, in particular, is likely to face a rollercoaster ride at the top of the game because he has more than flirted with the self-destruct button in the past and never looks too far away from a controversial incident or two.
Root may look as though butter would not melt in his mouth but he certainly has a bit of devil in him, as David Warner would agree, and may have to limit his role as the team’s social secretary now he is their captain-elect.
It is reassuring both come under the wing of former england batsman Neil Fairbrother, who also manages Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler, while in Bayliss and Paul Farbrace they have a coaching combination who will handle them with care.
That should give them the platform they need to go on to be truly great players for england and for many more Ashes series.
Root said yesterday: ‘Knowing what we went through in the last Ashes, all that hurt and pain and all the stuff we’ve had to overcome since then. Personally, that was the inspiration.’
It was when Root was dropped ahead of the final Test of that humiliation in Australia that he had a long, hard look at his game.
‘I made a few changes but the main thing I did was stick to my strengths,’ he said.
‘I made sure I made all the shots that I felt were my bread and butter as good as they could possibly be.
‘Then I just tightened up one or two other things and rather than try to have the perfect game, I made sure that if the ball came to areas where I was comfortable I would make the most of it.
Now I want to be as good as I can be.’ he can be as good, if not better, than any english batsman who has ever played the game, as he showed with two Ashes defining centuries at Cardiff and Trent Bridge — even if it has been a bit of a worry to see him suffer with regular back pain.
Stokes’ setbacks can be selfinflicted, as when he was sentnt home from a Lions tour for excessive drinking and when he punched a locker and put himself out of the World Twenty20, but what a genuine talent he is.
To watch Stokes bowling at Trent Bridge, where he swung the ball both ways so much at times he was unplayable, wass to believe that comparisons withth Andrew Flintoff almost do him an injustice.
Bayliss and Farbrace have taken england to a new level and director of cricket Andrew Strauss has proved more suited to the top job than Paul Downton but that does not mean Downton and former coach Peter Moores were the failures some would have you believe.
Cook stayed while all around him fell in those troubled 18 months and how l ucky england are that the l i kes of Downton and Moores believed in him so much.
This Ashes victory is redemption for all of them.