Joe Root has acknowledged England have “let ourselves down” with some “disappointing” behaviour in recent months. These culminated in the episode in a Chelsea nightclub last week that has forced Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson out of the second Test against New Zealand and prompted Root to resume the captaincy on what he described as a “game-by-game basis”.
Stokes and Atkinson have been sidelined after breaking the team’s midnight curfew while celebrating England’s victory in the opening game at Lord’s. As a result Root has returned for a 65th Test as captain – with more perhaps to follow – more than four years after he stepped down from a role with which he said at the time he had developed “a very unhealthy relationship” that “started to take a bad toll on my own personal health”.
