Captain is under pressure to start winning – he is no longer inexperienced

Root is in his third year leading England, but the team are still struggling to play with an identity

Joe Root insists he is not under pressure. As a captain you have to say that publicly, but he will be feeling it inside. England are losing and he is not scoring runs. This has been an awful year in Test cricket for him and the team. England are going to end 2019 without beating a major team in a Test series.

Root has captained 34 Tests. He is no longer inexperienced. But you watch this Test team and are still not sure of their identity, how they want to play, or their tactics. That is the captain’s responsibility.

When you are in your first year as a captain, it is understandable. But Root is in his third year and you expect a pattern of play to have developed by now.

Root has to start winning. But the team are in transition so we need to be patient. Usually when you go through a transitional period, it is because a chunk of senior players have retired, but that has not happened in this case so they should be more consistent.

I cannot see how England can sack him before the next Ashes. Ashley Giles and Chris Silverwood have said they want him to take charge of that tour, but in his own mind he will know he needs to score more runs and start winning for that to happen.

Looking from the outside he seems fine. He has been calm and composed in the interviews

I have seen. But what is going on internally? Only he knows that. People used to guess how I was feeling inside as captain, but they had no idea.

He is struggling. I do not think he is assessing the game quickly enough and he is going to the short-ball option too soon, especially with Jofra Archer in the first Test against New Zealand.

It is hard, however, to be a captain when you have a bowling attack that looks innocuous in those conditions. I do not know many captains who would have put New Zealand under pressure on that pitch with what he had to work with.

England have not won a Test in Australasia using the Kookaburra ball in 16 matches. They have lost 11 of those games and drawn five. They have only taken 20 wickets once in that time. It is a problem they have to address to stand any chance of competing against Australia, where they have lost nine of the past 10 Tests, in two years’ time.

The batting was rightly criticised, but it was the bowling that really worried me. It was so unthreatening.

England have to realise that whatever they are doing now in Australasian conditions is not working. It might mean they have to be bold with selection this week. The series against New Zealand does not count towards the Test Championship, so it is an opportunity to have a look at Matt Parkinson, the Lancashire leg-spinner, or his county colleague Saqib Mahmood.

But please do not make Sam Curran the scapegoat. He has a future. He has to stay in the side and learn. Archer has to play too for the same reason.

England have to be brave and start thinking how they are going to take 20 wickets in Australia. It means answering some tough questions. Is Jack Leach going to be the spinner who threatens Australia with the Kookaburra ball on these pitches? Is Stuart Broad going to be around in two years’ time?

If they think Leach is the man to take wickets in Australia, then stick with him, but I am pretty sure his left-arm spin is not going to be very effective on Australian wickets. The problem England have is that Leach has become a cult figure. He is a great kid who has done unbelievably well with the bat, but is he going to bowl teams out on good batting pitches?

The seamers cannot bowl on these flat wickets just looking to contain. They have to force a batsman to think by being willing to try something different.

Curran should be learning from someone like Neil Wagner. He is a similar kind of bowler, but he took the conditions out of it in the first Test by hitting the pitch hard and bowling some variations.

Wagner is an English-style bowler. He is not rapid. But he has taught himself how to take wickets on flat pitches with a Kookaburra ball. He bowls bouncers, knuckleballs and yorkers at moments that surprise the batsmen. His cricket brain is ahead of the batsmen’s. Colin de Grandhomme also outthought Root in the second innings. Root was completely surprised by the bouncer, so what England have to do is start picking bowlers who can do the same thing. They do not have three 90 mph bowlers, so they have to learn a method. Mahmood is not going to bowl that quick, but he might just offer some variety, be it with reverse swing or by creating some different angles.

England talk about the Test Championship but, in fact, they are building towards making sure they can compete in Australia in 2021-22. They have to analyse the games between now and then and work out how to make the most of them.

Is it worth playing with the Kookaburra in some Test matches at home over the next couple of years, so they can get used to the ball and attempt to replicate bowling in Australia?

I do not care if the England and Wales Cricket Board has a commercial deal with Dukes to provide balls. It is about what is the best thing for the England team to be better prepared to beat Australia in these conditions. If it means playing on some flat pitches in England with a Kookaburra, then fine. Do it.

They might have to take a bit of turmoil in English conditions and lose against India when they play them at home in 2021. The Kookaburra will still do something because of the conditions in England. But surely if the goal is to win in Australia, then use the Kookaburra and do not worry about struggling in a couple of series at home. You are not going to beat Australia in Australia by juicing up the pitches in England and bowling teams out with the Dukes ball to pick up a few wins, but that is exactly what we do all the time.