Joe Root has called on supporters to scale back their barracking of Australia’s players when the Ashes action moves to his home ground of Headingley on Thursday, as the row over Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Lord’s continues to simmer. “You come to support your nation,” Root said. “It doesn’t need to go beyond that, it should never go beyond that.”
There will be a much-changed team to support, with Ollie Pope ruled out of the rest of the series after scans showed he had dislocated his right shoulder, and the tight turnaround after Lord’s is likely to lead to both sides rotating their seamers.
Dan Lawrence is the only batting understudy in England’s squad but with the spin-bowling all-rounder Moeen Ali, now fully fit after injuring his finger in the first Test, expected to return, moving up to replace Pope at three could be either Harry Brook – who has never batted higher than No 5 in Tests – or Root, who has batted there 59 times.
Jimmy Anderson is expected to be rested after taking only three wickets in the first two matches but both Mark Wood and Chris Woakes could come into the side, with Josh Tongue thought likely to drop out despite his impressive performance last week.
Players of both sides are keen to alleviate the febrile atmosphere that settled over the series on day five in the second Test. Fans at Lord’s furiously turned on Australia after Bairstow’s dismissal on Sunday, but Root has pleaded with those in Yorkshire to concentrate on getting behind their own team.
“Support England – that’s the most important thing,” he said. “Support your team to the best of your ability – we’ll play to the best of ours. Create that brilliant atmosphere that has been created on this ground on so many previous occasions and we should have a fantastic week.”
Todd Murphy, the 22-year-old spinner who is in line to replace the injured Nathan Lyon for Australia, said his side was braced for an awkward week. “Everyone’s under no illusions it’s going to come pretty hard,” he said. “This is probably the most hostile ground you get in England. I’m sure they won’t hold back, so just embrace it and try to have a good time.”
Root said England’s players would “use the fuel” the controversy has provided when they stagger into the last-chance saloon on Thursday, 2‑0 down in the series and needing to win all three remaining Tests to regain the Ashes – and that Bairstow himself has taken on enough to power a rocket.
“I don’t think he took it great,” Root said. “Yeah he felt a bit hard done by, [and] Jonny does thrive off things like this. Playing at his home ground, I’m sure he will want to entertain the local crowd. You can bet your bottom dollar he will have the bit between his teeth.”
In the aftermath of Alex Carey’s controversial long-range stumping of Bairstow at Lord’s, with emotions still on a rolling boil, Ben Stokes provided a template by using the situation to power a mighty innings of nine sixes, as many fours and 155 runs. “He plays that situation better than anyone I have ever seen,” Root said.
“Look at [the Ashes Test at Headingley in] 2019 but also the World Cup game here [against Sri Lanka] where he nearly got us over the line on his own, and the World Cup final. It is not a freak one‑off innings – he is the GOAT of that situation. You look at how he gets himself into that zone and I think it was a brilliant example for the rest of the guys to follow. Use all that fuel, but do it in a very controlled manner.”
Australia’s Travis Head said on Tuesday that Bairstow had attempted to dismiss him in a similar fashion during the first Test at Edgbaston. “I walked out of my crease at the end of the over,” he said, “and the ball got whipped in, and I quickly whipped my bat back and questioned Jonny: ‘Would you take the stumps?’ And he said: ‘Bloody oath I would,’ and ran off.”
On Tuesday Root echoed the prevailing view from within the England camp – that they would not seek to dismiss anyone in a similar fashion – while being careful not to encourage further rancour. “We’ve got to draw a line under it at some point,” he said. “I fully respect that everyone will have their views on it. I hope people respect mine.”
Two games into the previous Ashes series, in Australia in 2021-22, England had lost by nine wickets and by 275 runs. While the Australians are once again 2-0 up, this year the margins have been wafer-thin. “If you look at some of the defeats we had on the last tour of Australia, they were by big margins and we were massively outplayed,” Root said.
“I look at the two games [this year] and I feel we played all the cricket in the first one and Australia snuck in the back door to win the game, and I thought we played some really good stuff last week. Credit to Australia for taking advantage of those situations, and I’m sure they’ll argue that they managed those moments better than us, but it doesn’t feel like we’re miles away and I very much expect us to be right in the contest this week.”
