England won the first game of their last Test series, against New Zealand at Lord’s, but between that match and the second Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson were involved in a headline-grabbing incident at a London nightclub. I’m really disappointed that after last week’s performance we’re sat here talking about something not related to it at all,” Joe Root said a couple of days later. Every time we sit here and we’re talking about something off the field it’s really frustrating.” Two months and four days separated the two press conferences, a period in which a great deal changed for this team – the New Zealand series was lost, as was a coach and a captain – but also, it seems, nothing at all.
So the frustration expressed by both Key and Root is also being felt, for different reasons, by those who have had to listen to them. Graham Gooch once famously asked Ian Botham, as it happens after a Test against Pakistan at Lord’s, where the teams will be reunited on Thursday: “Who writes your scripts?” Whoever is scripting the latest series of the soap opera needs to do a bit less recycling and get some fresh ideas. Root suggests that this is now guaranteed, given that since the squad reassembled in London he has led them through “conversations about what is expected from this group of players, what it means to play for England, what it takes to play for England … a very robust discussion about where we currently sit”.
The players now know the standards of behaviour expected from them on and off the field. Key, managing director of the England men’s side, was all smiles in the Lord’s sunshine as he watched the team train on Tuesday, apparently not feeling the sense of profound personal humiliation that the need for Root to lead a “robust discussion” might reasonably have provoked. But he would not be drawn on when, and under whom, it had been lost.
My concern is what happens moving from this point,” he said. This is something that we want to live and breathe every day and that’s what my focus is on. I don’t think it’s going to be helpful talking about what happened in that last period.” Root used the word “proud” a dozen times during his remarks to the press, and it is an emotion everyone associated with this team will want to enjoy with greater regularity.
Well, this is the opportunity that lies ahead and we have to start acting on that straight away.”
Extract — continue reading at the source.
