sport news England must rip it all up and start again - Root's race as captain is RUN and ...

sport news England must rip it all up and start again - Root's race as captain is RUN and ...
sport news England must rip it all up and start again - Root's race as captain is RUN and ...

This has to be rock bottom. They cannot go any lower. This has to be the moment England draw a line in the sand and really mean it when they say they will prioritise Test cricket.

And that means doing much, much more than having the audacity to call for a red-ball reset, as Tom Harrison did last week, while trousering a big fat bonus for undermining Test cricket by creating an unnecessary and unwanted new format in the Hundred.

It has been done before. As Alastair Cook said on BT after what is surely the worst of all away Ashes debacles, England knew they could not sink any lower when they were demolished for 51 by West Indies in Jamaica in 2009. They vowed to put things right and two years later were crowned the best Test team in the world.

England's shambolic collapse to a 4-0 Ashes series defeat leaves Joe Root's captaincy at risk

England's shambolic collapse to a 4-0 Ashes series defeat leaves Joe Root's captaincy at risk

Go back further and Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher came together in 1999 with England ranked the worst of the lot and began the recovery that was to culminate with the fabled 2005 Ashes victory under Fletcher and Michael Vaughan.

How England could do with a captain like Hussain now to drag them off the floor with his force of personality. And how they could do with a coach like Fletcher with a steely vision of where they need to go and the technical acumen and drive to take them there.

It is all very well blaming the system and clearly a domestic game that has been far too in thrall to the white ball is the fundamental reason for England’s shocking demise in Australia.

There is zero trust in a rudderless ECB led by a dead chief executive walking in Harrison and without a chairman at all. 

Australia finished England off in the fifth and final test with an easy 146-run win at Hobart

Australia finished England off in the fifth and final test with an easy 146-run win at Hobart 

The board have been asleep at the wheel while England are facing up to a year when they will play more international cricket than ever before with their players in the mood to rebel against any further Covid bubbles and restrictions.

But a broken system does not excuse those who have been responsible for this Ashes being even worse than the nadirs of 2006-07 which was to cost Fletcher his job, and that of 2013-14 that was to do for another coach of real substance in Andy Flower.

That means, for all his desire to carry on and the lack of viable alternatives, Joe Root’s captaincy race is run, Chris Silverwood has to pay the price for being given too much responsibility for coaching and selection and Ashley Giles must go for giving Silverwood that hospital pass in the first place.

Root cannot survive simply because there is no one else. He has overseen three Ashes without success after admitting before this series that his legacy would be judged by this one. 

And if anything he is getting worse tactically. He needs to go back to the ranks and concentrate on restoring the very high batting levels misplaced during this series.

The one outstanding candidate to replace Root is Ben Stokes. For all the reservations many, including this observer, have about overloading such an important player, Stokes could do the job with one important proviso — he would have to

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