Domestic game not "readying" players for Test arena, says Joe Root

GEORGE DOBELL AT THE MCG: Root has suggested emulating England's limited-over revolution with a focus on improving the country's red-ball cricket

Joe Root has admitted that the domestic game in England may not be "readying" players well enough for Test cricket.

While Root, speaking moments after England subsided to a humbling Ashes defeat, reiterated his belief that "the best 18 players from the county game" were in his squad, he did question whether that county game was providing adequate preparation.

The figures would suggest it is not. Not only have England lost nine Tests this year – a new record – but their batters have been dismissed for 54 ducks in the calendar year. It equals their own record set in 1998. England have now lost 12 of the 13 most recent Ashes Tests in Australia (they drew the other one) and won only one of their most recent 12 anywhere.

As a consequence, Root has suggested there should be a "reset" in England's prioritisations similar to the one that occurred in white-ball cricket after the 2015 World Cup. At that time, it was decided England should prioritise the white-ball format with the result that they won the next World Cup four years later.

"The environment that they're coming from is not readying them well enough for Test cricket," Root said of his team. "And it's a very difficult place to improve in that Test environment.

"Where the game is at in our country right now the only place you can really learn that is in the hardest environment for what is quite a young batting group. They're having to learn out here in the harshest environments.

^{Scott Boland celebrates the wicket of Root, his sixth of the innings on debut (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)}

"I would say I think that the best 18 players from the county game are definitely on this tour. There are some very talented players within this squad and we have to just keep looking to find ways of upskilling ourselves and each other and managing pressure points within the game better.

"Maybe you look back at 2015 and the reset that happened in white-ball cricket. Maybe that's something that needs to be happening in our red-ball game as well."

Root's own position is sure to come under scrutiny as a result of this defeat. While he declined to speculate on his future as captain, he did also decline to look beyond the end of the series.

"The series isn't over yet," he said. "We've got two very big games and, more than anything, it'd be wrong to look past that.

"As player, we talk about the next hour or the next session and managing that to the best of your abilities. That's all we have to focus on and that applies to me as well as captain of this team. We've got to make sure we come away from the tour with some better performances and a win or two under our belt.

"I'm in the middle of a very important series. My energy has to be all about trying to win the next game. I can't be selfish and start thinking about myself."

In the short-term, Root urged his side to "keep working hard" and "stay very mentally resilient" in order to take some consolation victories from the end of the tour.

^{Root ends the year with 1,708 Test runs, narrowly missing out on a world record (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)}

"It's bitterly disappointing to be a three-nil down, but with two Tests to go we have to we have to come away from this tour with a couple of wins," he said. "You have to have a really strong inner belief and we need to put some pride back into the badge, to give people back home something to celebrate from this tour.

"We have to stay very mentally resilient. More than anything we have to just keep working very hard on our games and keep looking at ways to get better. And we have to make sure that when we get our opportunities to get ahead of the game, we take them.

"You can look at last night or today all you want. But in that first innings, I thought 250-270 would have been a very good par score on that surface. We would have been very much in the game if we had scored that many.

"Their bowling on the second evening was outstanding. But you've just got to find a way to get through it. You have to really battle hard and get to the close none or one down. Then you're looking at a different game.

"You turn up today, you walk out with Ben Stokes and you feel like anything's possible. So, we're bitterly disappointed to find ourselves in this position.

"I'm absolutely gutted. Everyone in that dressing room is gutted. That's not a good enough performance and we know that.

"We need to put some pride back into the badge and make sure we come away from this tour with something."

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