When Andrew Strauss swapped the commentary box for the role of England’s director of cricket in May 2015, among his first moves – along with shoring up the position of a then-wobbling Alastair Cook – was to relieve Ian Bell of the Test vice-captaincy and hand it to Joe Root, thus a putting a long-term succession plan in place.
Fast forward 18 months, with England 2-0 down to India, looking worryingly ill-equipped to square the series and a year away from their defence of the Ashes in Australia, the question of when this button will be pushed is starting to cross minds, not least since Cook, who will turn 32 on Christmas Day, began openly talking of a desire to return to the playing ranks before his eventual retirement.
Is the current team, one that beat Australia in 2015 and then won in South Africa but now sit two defeats away from equalling a record eight losses in a calendar year (matching 1984, 1986 and 1993), still progressing under Cook? It is something Cook and Strauss continue to discuss on a series-by-series basis.
With a home Test summer against a resurgent South Africa and a perhaps less-threatening West Indies side, any change to the arrangement would logically need to occur after either the current tour or the 2017-18 Ashes, given Root would need a run-up to tackling such a winter.
Australia is a tour that Cook himself may well eye as a swansong in the role given the 5-0 defeat suffered last time. He would likely have a side better equipped, you would think, to compete there than on the subcontinent, too.
His captaincy, after an England-record 57 Tests, continues to attract criticism for “conservatism” – the third day in Mohali the most recent example – but with holes in the batting and only one spinner, Adil Rashid, fulfilling their role, not all of it should fall at his door.
Root, speaking before he and the majority of the squad flew to Dubai for a mid-tour rest before the fourth Test in Mumbai on 8 December, has unsurprisingly stated his preference for Cook to carry on for some time. “I think he is pretty set on captaining for a few years and I hope he does because I think he is a brilliant leader and I’ve really enjoyed playing under him,” said the 25-year-old, who has only known life under Cook since making his debut in 2012. “I’m quite happy with the role I’m playing at the moment and you want to do what is right for England and the side.
“And genuinely, honestly, I think he is the right man. Hopefully, we get these results we want in the last two games and we can put right what has been quite a frustrating last couple of weeks.”
Cook stated after the defeat in Mohali that the team’s mini-break is certainly needed amid their epic seven-Test pre-Christmas schedule and while a six-month hiatus will follow in the new year, this is understandable on a personal level with the five days in Dubai seeing him reunited with his family and the daughter with whom he has spent only the 18 hours after her birth before flying out to join the team in Bangladesh.
Root has been unaware of this having had any effect on his leadership, however, with blame for the current dormie scoreline in his eyes resting squarely on the jumbled batting lineup that, after racking up 537 first-up in the draw in Rajkot, failed to pass 300 in their first innings during the defeats in Visakhapatnam and Mohali.
“I think he is coping all right,” said Root. “He’s very professional and you don’t really get much from him in that respect. I imagine it must be quite tough being away from a new child and family and everything. You could put a lot of blame on Cooky but actually it is the responsibility of the batters to make those big scores. You can blame whoever you want, but we have to take responsibility for our own games.”
Root was certainly one of the guilty men during both, having run out his partner Haseeb Hameed and been caught in the deep during the second-day collapse in Vizag, and the swipe across the line against Jayant Yadav – the first ball after drinks on the opening morning – saw him trapped lbw for 15 and England falter again in Mohali.
Greater disgust with himself would come in the second innings, however, when on 78 he was caught at slip off the left-armer Ravi Jadeja to end a stand of 45 with the injured Hameed at No8 that he felt may have given England a puncher’s chance of bowling out India had it continued.
Hameed, who has returned home this week for surgery on his broken little finger and will be replaced by Durham’s uncapped left-hander Keaton Jennings (who celebrated his England call-up with an unbeaten century as Lions captain in their eight-wicket win over United Arab Emirates in Dubai), has made an impression on Root, who in his role as a senior player has spoken to the 19-year-old on how best to approach his cricket for Lancashire before the South Africa series in July.
“The only advice I gave was make sure you don’t go back to county cricket at the start of the summer and rest on your laurels and think: ‘I’m a Test cricketer now,’” Root said.
“It’s an opportunity to prove to everyone in county cricket that you are there for a reason. You have opportunities to make some really big scores, keep learning and improving, put the good work he has done here into his game and continue to develop the way he has done.
“He will have different expectations in the future and that might be a different challenge but he has got a very good head on his shoulders and he should be proud of what he has done so far. Now it is about managing those expectations and being realistic – it’s going to take time to keep developing and it might not always go how he wants. But I’m sure that if he does have some hard times, he’ll get through it.”
Sound advice from the second best batsman in the world Test rankings. India’s Virat Kolhi jumped into a career high third after Mohali, having begun the series in 15th, and with Australia’s Steve Smith top and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson fourth it means Root is the only one among this recognised elitewho is not captain of his national side. When this changes remains to be seen.
