News Analysis
Joe Root will walk out at Lord’s on Wednesday with the armband again, two-and-a-bit years after he gave it up. Officially he is “interim” captain. Unofficially he is the plug in a gap England are not sure how, or when, to fill.
We still do not know whether he is merely keeping the seat warm for Ben Stokes, or holding it until Harry Brook is ready, or something in between. Asked over the past week, Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and now Root himself have all played the straightest of bats. No deadlines, no firm commitments, just a collective shrug while two investigations – one inside the ECB, one run by the independent Cricket Regulator – grind away in the background.
Root chose his words carefully on Tuesday. “He has the respect of everyone in our dressing-room,” he said of Stokes. Fair enough. But when pressed on whether he wanted Stokes back as captain, Root deflected: those decisions, he said, sit with “people that are in a slightly different job”. He confirmed private conversations with his friend but called them “privileged conversations” that should “stay between us”. In other words: nothing to see here, move along.
If the aim was to calm the waters, the effect was almost the opposite. Stokes’ demeanour last week felt off long before that bruising Sunday session at the bar was splashed across social media. McCullum admitted on Monday he had “no guarantees” his skipper would return for the summer. Key has been similarly non-committal. And now Root, normally straightforward, has tip-toed round the subject.
The former captain did open a small window into his own headspace. “I found I ended up being so consumed with everything that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be,” he reflected on his five years in charge. The pandemic, the bubble life, one win in 17 – none of it fun. His words landed because they sounded uncomfortably close to Stokes’ recent reality.
Right now, nobody inside the England camp is saying Stokes has played his last Test, but equally nobody is prepared to guarantee he will lead the side again. Getting him back for Trent Bridge next Thursday already feels optimistic.
So Root returns, officially on a “game-by-game basis”. He did not entirely shut the door on a longer stay. “The only thinking that came to my mind is, ‘What is the best thing for the team?’ and, ‘Is it going to have a big effect on me and my personal life?’… It felt like it was the right thing to take this on.” The possibility that he could oversee the rest of the summer, or even the winter tour, no longer sounds fanciful.
The squad itself has tried to get on with the cricket. Senior bowler James Anderson pointed out after training that “the mood’s been decent – blokes have parked the noise”. Quietly, though, selection meetings have already had to reach further for contingencies. Brook has long been judged a future leader but England still think he needs a year or two. Ollie Pope, another name on the shortlist, has just returned from a shoulder problem. Hence Root: experienced, respected, available.
From a purely tactical view the move is logical. Root has 64 Tests in the book. He understands the rhythms of captaincy, knows which lever to pull with which bowler, and remains England’s most reliable batter. That said, the last months of his first stint were draining. Stuart Broad remembers seeing “a bloke carrying far too much”. Root freely admits he “loved the job right up until the end – and then I didn’t”.
What has changed? Less Covid, for one. Also, Root insists he is better at separating life and cricket. Yet he is 35 in December and still desperate to squeeze another thousand Test runs out of his prime. Will the captaincy help or hinder? We will find out under the Lord’s pavilion clock soon enough.
For now the players have parked the big picture and are busy scouting a lively surface. Local groundsman Karl McDermott says there is “a bit more grass than usual” and Anderson is already licking his lips. Australia, 1–0 down, have their own mini crisis after losing Pat Cummins to a quad strain. It has the makings of an old-fashioned seam shoot-out.
But whatever happens with the Dukes ball on Wednesday morning, the bigger story sits in the dressing-room. Root has plugged the gap. Whether it is a stop-gap or a new chapter depends largely on a man not present at Lord’s this week – and on how England, and Stokes himself, make peace with whatever comes out of those investigations.
Until then, Root leads, everyone else waits, and England march on, one game at a time.
