Baz ally locked in as new England boss, fresh Root twist as Langer issues warning<\/a><\/p>\nEngland captain Joe Root with his captain’s jacket during the 2nd Rothesay Test Match Day 1 between England and New Zealand at The Kia Oval in London, United Kingdom, on June 17, 2026. (Photo by Mark Cosgrove\/News Images\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Root believes he is better equipped for the challenge now, having scored 4,225 runs in the four years since relinquishing the captaincy to charge towards Tendulkar\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I\u2019m] hugely different, anyone that says in an eight-year period they were the same person they were [at the start] is probably lying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it be within the game, away from it, all the experience you have along the way throughout that period you will be shaped into a slightly different person. I think that will be very similar in how I want to take this team forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, England\u2019s managing director Rob Key admitted in an interview with the BBC on Friday that Gilchrist\u2019s suggestion was right.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of this happened a little bit too soon, probably,\u201d he replied when asked about the lack of captaincy candidates within the England Test team.<\/p>\n
Harry Brook was Stokes\u2019 vice-captain and is in charge of the white-ball teams, but the 27-year-old was passed over for the Test job off the back of a nightclub fight with a bouncer in Wellington last year.<\/p>\n
There were also concerns about his ability to juggle leading all three formats – something Root never had to deal with as Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler took charge in the shorter formats.<\/p>\n
Key was also asked about Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope, who were discarded after and during the 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia.<\/p>\n
The pair of 28-year-olds have played 64 Tests each with former vice-captain Pope even leading England on five occasions in Stokes\u2019 absence.<\/p>\n
But ultimately, England were unable to yield a return on their investments as their struggles down under eventually led to the pair being dropped after years of middling performances – Crawley averages 31.18, while Pope averages 34.55.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shame is their form got in the way of them being able to stay in the side,\u201d Key said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen that void wouldn\u2019t have been there as much. I think we would have had two outstanding leaders \u2026 We\u2019ve got leaders, they\u2019re just in the white-ball set up at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for their verdicts on Fleming, Root said the five-time winner of the IPL with the Chennai Super Kings\u2019 appointment was one of the key motivators behind donning the captain\u2019s blazer once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve spoken briefly and if I\u2019m being brutally honest he was a big reason why I wanted to do it,\u201d Root said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited by the way he sees the game, where he sees us sit as a team and the work we have to do to get to where we want to get to.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of that got me very excited about taking this role on. Very much looking forward to working with him and he\u2019s obviously got a wealth of experience, done some amazing things in the game as a player and as a coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the next little while and us trying to build something pretty special together.\u201d<\/p>\n
LUCKNOW, INDIA – APRIL 14:Stephen Fleming coach of Chennai Super Kings warms up prior to the 2025 IPL match between Lucknow Super Giants and Chennai Super Kings at Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium on April 14, 2025, in Lucknow, India. (Photo by Prakash Singh\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Gilchrist shared Root\u2019s sentiments towards Fleming in what could be a warning sign to Australia before next year\u2019s Ashes in England.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got the utmost respect for him. He\u2019s a quality person, a fine thinker of the game and an outstanding tactician as a captain,\u201d Gilchrist told foxsports.com.au.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a really sensible, matter of fact guy. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s really too much outrageous creativity, but through deep thought he does have a creative component there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess the fact all his coaching has been all around T20 (could be a challenge), but that doesn\u2019t mean it can\u2019t be transferred. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about man management and he has over 100 Test matches of his own playing experience to know the landscape of Test match cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fleming will work alongside his former teammate and business partner McCullum, who remains England\u2019s white-ball coach.<\/p>\n
Key said the focus for Fleming will be to get back to \u201cbasics\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it\u2019s about, can we bring someone in who can get this team to do the basics bloody well? It probably didn\u2019t need to take four years to realise such a person might be useful,\u201d Key said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try and set things up so that you have the best chance of success \u2013 but not only success, to sustain success,\u201d Key added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what English cricket\u2019s got to do. We have moments where we win series. Australia has success and repeats it. That\u2019s what we need to do. We can\u2019t just have \u2026 a brilliant two or three years. We need it to be better than that. And that\u2019s what I think is going to happen, going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Root has promised to not rip up England\u2019s Bazball playbook during his second stint as Test captain.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":839093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-839092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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