Bad Weeks and Pink Balls: Root Backs England’s Unusual Ashes Prep
Joe Root, one of Test cricket’s modern greats, is backing England’s decision to skip the pink-ball Prime Minister’s XI game and their habit of “responding well to bad weeks of cricket” – a philosophy that only works if you run out of bad weeks before the series runs out of Tests.
Skipping the PM’s XI and trusting the nets
Root fronted the press after England trained in the Gabba nets on Sunday, 24 hours after they chose Brisbane’s Allan Border Field over Canberra, where Campbell Kellaway, Nathan McSweeney and Oliver Peake all helped themselves to half-centuries for the Prime Minister’s XI against the England Lions.
While Australia’s next generation were cashing in on centre-wicket time, Ben Stokes’ side stuck to their much-mocked plan: prepare for Mitchell Starc and the pink Kookaburra almost exclusively under lights in the nets. Root backed the strategy and, with a straight face, the optics.
“This is the best way to prepare personally,” he said. “It’s very different in terms of humidity and heat, and the surface is going to be very different.
“The fact we’re all together and we can ready ourselves as a group is also very important too. Time in the middle is one thing, but as an experienced player, I feel like I know what I need to get the best out of myself.”
For all the talk of history repeating, Root stressed that this England are not haunted reruns of 2013–14 or 2017–18.
“This is a very different team to previous Ashes teams I’ve played in out here,” he said.
“One thing we’ve done previously is respond really well to bad weeks of cricket. When we’ve made mistakes we’ve come back out and put really good performances in.”
It’s the kind of line that sounds admirable until you remember there are only so many “bad weeks” available in an Ashes summer before the scoreboard starts spelling out something grim and very 5–0-shaped.
Day/night doubt and Australia’s pink-ball fortress
Australia have been the standard-bearers for day/night Test cricket, staging one every home summer since the first pink-ball Test in Adelaide a decade ago, and winning 13 of 14 under lights. Their relationship with the pink ball is less “experiment” and more “long-term committed partnership”. Visiting teams tend to feel like the awkward third wheel.
Root, though, is in no rush to drag the Ashes fully into prime time.
“I personally don’t think so,” he replied when asked if the Gabba should host a day/night Test.
“It’s obviously very successful and very popular here and obviously Australia’s got a very good record as well. I can see why we’re playing one of these games.
“A series like this, does it need it? I don’t think so, but [that] doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be one.”
If that sounds like a man lukewarm on the pink ball, his own record offers a decent explanation. The numbers are not disastrous, but they don’t scream “bring on the lights” either.
Root the great… and the Australian asterisk
Across three tours, Root has piled up runs in Australia without quite cracking the code. He owns a stack of half-centuries here and a top score marooned in the 80s, but still no hundred to scribble next to “Australia” on his career ledger. For a player who has passed 13,000 Test runs and averages around 50, it’s less a failure and more an irritating coffee stain on an otherwise pristine CV.
The most recent blot came in Perth, where Root lasted just 18 balls for scores of 0 and 8 in England’s heavy defeat.
“I was pretty disappointed in terms of numbers,” he admitted. “First innings I thought it was a good ball, one of those things you can get early on, and you’ve just got to try to find a way to get through that little phase. It’s tricky at the start.
“Second innings I thought my tempo was really good. One mistake, you play and miss at that or it goes between the keeper and stumps for four, you never think of it again… Yes there are things I might’ve done differently if I get the opportunity again, but also it’s not the end of the world.”
Root insists he returns to Australia as a different sort of problem for the home side: no longer captain, more experienced,
and with a clearer, calmer method.
“I’ve had a good couple of years heading into this and I’ve got a clear understanding of how I want to score my runs,” he said.
“I know that if I get time out there and make good decisions for long periods of time I’m going to be successful. I know I’m a good player.”
Bazball, execution and the shrinking margin for error
England’s batting in Perth – 172 and 164 in 32.5 and 34.4 overs – looked less like method and more like a lottery draw, but Root is adamant the issue is execution, not Bazball itself.
“I think we just need to execute a lot better and understand how we’re going to score our runs on the given surfaces,” he said.
“We do that individually well, and we do that for long periods of time, that’s the art of batting.”
For Root, that art now has to be performed against a pink ball, on Australian pitches, without Mark Wood, who has been ruled out of the second Test with a knee injury. The plan, then, is stark: trust the nets, trust the method, and trust that one of the modern greats finally finds a way to turn all those Australian 80s into something more than an elegant footnote – before the calendar runs out of “bad weeks” to fix.
