Joe Root believes England’s cavalier style of cricket will be “inspiring” youngsters across the country and “intimidating opponents” around the world after they chased 378 to beat India at Edgbaston.
Root, like Jonny Bairstow, scored an unbeaten century in England’s seven-wicket victory that levelled a series that started last summer when he was still England captain.
Then, England were in a barren run that saw them win just one of 17 Tests, and ended with Root resigning the captaincy and Ben Stokes taking over.
In combination with coach Brendon McCullum, Root says Stokes has encouraged England’s players to carry on like “rockstars”.
In fact, he celebrated his century on Tuesday morning with a nod to Elvis Presley. Stokes had watched the movie about Elvis recently and noticed him waggling his little finger, so Root celebrated in that fashion.
“It’s like being a kid again,” said Root. “It’s great. It’s like how it felt when I first started playing. It’s how it should be and hopefully the way that we’re playing at the minute can inspire a lot of youngsters to take up the game and enjoy it and get excited about Test cricket and love it as we do.”
Root says there is full belief among the England players over what they are doing, and thinks there will be opponents around the world “intimidated by what we’re capable of doing”.
“It's the full belief in what we're trying,” he said. "The fact that there's a full buy-in from everyone. If guys haven't quite got it right there's still a backing, almost go the other way and back yourself even more next time.
“Ben said we're not going to bat first, we're going to field first, we're going to chase and that's just how we were looking at things now. It's just a slightly different outlook on the game. But you know when you've got the whole group buying into it, believing in it, trusting it and you know you've got the full team backing up what you're trying to do, it gives you a huge amount of confidence.
“I think once you've done it once, you know you can do it and you prove to yourself you can. It does make it that little bit easier. It makes it a little bit more believable. Now I've done it a few times, that breeds huge confidence.
“I imagine there will be sides around the world looking at the way that we've been playing and feeling a little bit intimidated by what we're capable of doing. You don't want to be too into what other teams are doing and how they're approaching things. But again, that can only breed more confidence within you and you think sides could be very wary of what you're capable of.”
