Vaughan on Root He needs to start winning. By now his team should be showing a clear identity
Captain vows team will respond in second Test De Grandhomme and Boult absent for Kiwis
For the best international cricketers, the setting on the treadmill does nothing except increase. After the second Test of this two-match series, and their 23-hour flight home from New Zealand via Los Angeles, England’s Test players are off to South Africa a week later. Christmas at home at the end of a year in which they have toured West Indies, won the World Cup, shared the Ashes, and toured New Zealand? Not the slightest chance.
New Zealand’s players are treated a little more kindly – always given a full Indian Premier League window so they can cash in – but three days after this Test series against England, they must fly to Perth, to play a day/night pink-ball Test at the new stadium without a practice game, thence to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test, and on to Sydney for New Year. Even their assiduous captain Kane Williamson was sent home from Sri Lanka last month to give himself a break.
And all the while these cricketers are expected never to drop a catch or make a wrong decision while batting – not one out of the thousand or so decisions involved in a masterpiece of craftsmanship like Bradley-john Watling’s 205 that won the opening Test for New Zealand by an innings. Fortunately, Joe Root’s Test players, while on the treadmill, have grown a particular habit. If they fall off it – perhaps through being mentally jaded and overstretched – they get back on straightaway and concentrate.
They lost a Test, then won the next, against South Africa in the summer of 2017; lost then won against West Indies directly afterwards. After losing – or at best drawing – all that winter in Australia and New Zealand, they lost then won against Pakistan and India in the summer of 2018; and lost then won against West Indies and Australia earlier this year.
“It feels almost like a one-day game in terms of how quick the turnaround is,” Root said. “You’ve seen how well that side – there’s a lot of guys that overlap – how well they respond. Look at this Test team over the last couple of years and, when we have been beaten, we’ve generally come back well. Granted it’s usually at home, but there’s no reason we can’t here.”
Seddon Park is “more of a swinging ground, more humid than Mount Maunganui”, according to New Zealand’s bowling coach Shane Jurgensen, so there is a case for England bringing back Chris Woakes, perhaps instead of the spinner Jack Leach, both to swing the ball and let England’s opening bowlers have shorter spells. Or England could be unchanged. “Everyone seems to have pulled up really well. Obviously, the fact that we didn’t bowl last helped, so that’s a good sign and a sign of where our fitness as a squad is,” Root said.
Root added that Jofra Archer, after the racist abuse, “is OK. Obviously, there’s no place for that anywhere and you don’t expect it anywhere near a cricket ground. He seems good in himself – his jolly, happy self – in practice. Everyone has made sure he’s OK and let him know we have his back and we’re supporting him. But yes, he’s dealt with it very well.
“You look at his whole career and it’s all been like that. He’s dealt with noise since not just coming into the international game but going over to the Big Bash and taking that by storm as a replacement and all of a sudden being one of the players of that year’s tournament.
“Then he went over to the IPL and did the same thing. And then he won us the World Cup with that super-over. He’s dealt with so much already for such a young man. It’s impressive to see his attitude and how he continues to stay generally pretty level.”
Another reason for Root to be cheerful was that New Zealand will lack Trent Boult – it will be the first Test their quick left-armer has missed since 2017 – and Colin de Grandhomme. Less cheering was the realisation that England, therefore, had only three fit bowlers to withstand on the last day at Mount Maunganui: Boult bowled one over on the fifth day, while De Grandhomme damaged an abdomen muscle on the fourth evening. He still managed one wicket on the last day when Root got out to what he had the natural grace to call his “two horrendous shots” in the first Test.
Root was laughing again while he practised his slip-catching with Zak Crawley on the green field that is Seddon Park in early summer – a pointer to Crawley’s long-term future – while they were put through their paces by Paul Collingwood. He and Graham Thorpe took charge as the head coach Chris Silverwood prepares to fly home for the funeral of his father-in-law.
Collingwood’s routine involved throwing two balls at the same time, close range and low down, for
Root to catch, one in each hand: Root came closer than Crawley to holding both at once. And when Root clung on to a blinder lefthanded at full stretch, no sandboy could have been happier.
It is easier for Williamson to project gravitas from mid-off. Root inherited first slip from Alastair Cook, who inherited it from Andrew Strauss, before both were knighted;
but when Strauss was first slip, he had a highly experienced bowling unit of James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann – and neither Tim Bresnan nor Steve Finn were rookies. A word, nod or pointed finger sufficed.
When England’s attack became more raw, and the captain – whether Cook or Root – stood at first slip, things began to drift. It is only so often that first slip can run to the bowler at the other end and back: fines and suspensions for a slow over rate threaten. Williamson stands at mid-off, takes the ball, polishes it, talks to his bowler alongside if needs be, and everyone knows who is boss.
Root, however, has a full team on his side for the second Test, and this habit of bounce-back ability.