Joe Root in a shocking admission regretted his time as England's Test captain as he said if he could go back in time he would start captaining like Ben Stokes, who has introduced fearless and aggressive brand of cricket to England.
Root also said that England should continue their 'Bazball' approach despite their defeat to Australia in the Ashes 2023 Test series opener at Edgbaston.
Following England's brutal hammering of 0-4 at the hands of Australia in the previous edition of the Ashes, Root had to step down from Test captaincy. The World no.1 Test batter led England from 2017 to 2022 in which he won 27 matches and lost 26 in a total of 64 Tests. One can't say England excelled under Root's captaincy going by the track record.
But England's humiliation in Ashes 2022 led to massive culling their cricket director, Test captain and coach. But with the appointments of new Test captain and coach in Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum respectively, things have changed in England cricket arena. The duo of Stokes and McCullum has won 11 of their 14 Tests with Bazball approach.
"If I could go back in time I'd go back and start my captaincy the way Ben has and try to get us to play in a similar manner to how he does it. It's far more exciting, it's far more interesting, and I think we're getting far more out of our team and our individuals," Root said, as quoted by The Guardian.
"We're playing better cricket to watch, we're producing better results overall. And if we are going to grow as a team we can't just look at a game like that, with a couple of moments that went against us, and say: 'We need to go about things differently," he added.
Root said the defeat in Birmingham Test hurt but England will continue to play Bazball cricket throughout the series against Australia. England and Australia will lock horns with each other again for the second Test at Lord's from June 28.
"We sent a strong message to everyone about how we want to go about things. We just have to go and do it again at Lord's and again for three more after that. Everyone should strap in and expect exactly the same from us, because that's what we're about now," Root concluded.
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