England’s Interim Managing Director Andrew Strauss has confirmed that Test captain Joe Root has said “very categorically” that he wants to bat at No3 in the upcoming tour of the West Indies.
England have dropped the entire top three that started the 4-0 Ashes drubbing, with Rory Burns, Haseeb Hameed and Dawid Malan all dispensed with.
Alex Lees will come in to open for his Test debut alongside Zak Crawley, while Root will move up to No3, a position he has not occupied since the 2019 Ashes. It reopens a long-running debate about where Root bats, with No4 his preferred position.
“A lot of the troubles with our batting lineup have come at the top of our order,” Strauss told BBC Sport. “Alex Lees comes in as a mature cricketer who knows his game well. It’s an opportunity for him to stake his claim with Zak Crawley at the top of the order.
“More importantly, Joe Root has said very categorically that he wants to bat at No3 and take that responsibility on. That is quite a fundamental shift himself, and makes a little bit of room in the middle order for some of the young players to play better and more consistently.
“You can look at a lot of the players we’ve picked in the last 18 months, they are all very talented, and have shown promise at international level. What they haven’t done is shown it consistently.
“When people talk about a red ball reset, we need to look at everything we do, and think how we can do it better. That’s the domestic game, selection, how we develop our players in the England environment. I don’t think anyone can say they’ve been doing this brilliantly. Least of all the players themselves.”
The expectation is that Ollie Pope or Dan Lawrence will be promoted to bat No4, ahead of Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, with Ben Foakes keeping wicket at No7.
