The legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne still believes that Joe Root should continue as England test captain. Noteworthy that the pressure has been surrounding Joe Root since England again failed to win a Test match in the ongoing Ashes.
Australia regained the Ashes with an innings win at Melbourne though England put up some fight in the 4th test as they managed to draw the match to avoid the possibility of a whitewash. This is Joe Root’s second Ashes series in Australia as a captain but he failed to win a single test out of 9 matches. Overall he led England in 60 test matches with 27 wins and 24 losses.
Root hasn’t won a Test as captain in Australia
Since England couldn’t get the Ashes back even in the home series under his captaincy, there are talks if it’s the right time to hand over Ben Stokes the captaincy. However, Shane Warne still backs Root to do the job as he believes in his prime batting but Warne insisted that he would need some help from the team management.
“I think Joe Root is the man to captain the side. I think he should remain as captain. What he needs, though, is not sports science people or data. He can have those people in the background. But what he needs around him is hard, Test match players, who have been there and know the game of cricket,” Shane Warne spoke to TalkSport.
Joe Root also hadn’t played an impactful knock in Australia as he is yet to score a test century in 13 Tests he played down under.
“They can help him with tactics and strategy. If you surround him with a few of those people, you’ll see the best of Root. You would have to say there’s not enough good cricket knowledge people around him,” he added.
Warne further pointed out that England didn’t play to their potential as they tactically lagged behind. He stated that England missed out on the trick by not playing Stuart Broad in the Ashes opener at Brisbane. Broad is the only England bowler to take a fifer in this Ashes as he picked 5/101 in the Sydney Test. He also pointed out that David Warner had struggled against Broad and having him could have set things differently for England.
“England will be disappointed with the way they’ve played. They could’ve played a lot better. But I think Australia have been absolutely outstanding as well. I just think England have got a lot of the basics wrong.
“How does Stuart Broad not play that first Test? When you think of the 2019 Ashes series and what Broad did to David Warner, he owned him. When they announced Broad wasn’t playing, how do you think Warner felt? The selections have just been horrific, really. They haven’t got any of them right,” Warne said.
The fifth and final test of the Ashes will be played from January 14 at Hobart.