{"id":859831,"date":"2026-08-18T17:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/859831\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:00:10","slug":"england-v-pakistan-joe-root-calls-on-team-mates-to-be-good-human-beings-at-start-of-second-captaincy-reign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/859831\/","title":{"rendered":"England v Pakistan: Joe Root calls on team-mates to be ‘good human beings’ at start of second captaincy reign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Root, England’s greatest batter and a veteran of 166 Tests, said he hoped his “natural persona” is suited to bringing a sense of calm to the men’s national team.<\/p>\n

Off-field issues dominated last winter’s tours, including an incident involving Harry Brook and a nightclub bouncer in Wellington<\/a> and the team’s drinking during a mid-Ashes trip to Noosa<\/a>, culminating in a heavy 4-1 defeat by Australia.<\/p>\n

The issues continued into the summer when Stokes broke a team curfew<\/a>, setting in motion a chaotic six weeks that resulted in a 2-1 series defeat by New Zealand, Stokes’ retirement and the sacking of McCullum.<\/p>\n

Fellow New Zealander Stephen Fleming has been appointed as McCullum’s replacement, but batting coach Marcus Trescothick will take interim charge of the Test side for the three-match series against Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Root, who has already led England in 65 Tests having held the role between 2017 and 2022, said one of his “big challenges” is “trying not to be Ben Stokes”. <\/p>\n

“He is a very unique player with unbelievable qualities that I don’t think are easy to replicate,” Root said. “I don’t think there is any point trying to. <\/p>\n

“It is going to have a slightly different look to it but that is OK.”<\/p>\n

England were known for their attacking style under Stokes and McCullum but Root said he wants his side to be “versatile”.<\/p>\n

“There has been a lot of good stuff that has happened in the past four years that will serve us really well.<\/p>\n

“It is about not ripping it up, just fine tuning and evolving that and taking that to the next level. We have got to find a way of evolving the team without him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Root, England’s greatest batter and a veteran of 166 Tests, said he hoped his “natural persona” is suited…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-859831","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\/859831","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=859831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}