Even a couple of weeks ago, at the end of a tour of the Caribbean which finished with a desperate defeat in Grenada to leave England with one win in 17 Tests, Joe Root seemed determined to carry on as captan, and certain that he was the right man for the job.
Root’s public utterances were not even “I’ll go away and think about it”, and he appeared to retain the full support of his players, even if many outside the camp wondered why he still wanted a job that is quite so unforgiving, after so long in the post.
