“If he doesn’t recognise that...”: Former Aussie opener criticises Root's captaincy in wake of Test loss
Joe Root believes England’s bowlers were the side’s biggest problem in the second Test loss in Adelaide, suggesting their length was too short.
Despite a valiant effort in the fourth innings to salvage a draw, the England batters couldn’t see out the fifth and final day and were bowled out with around 20 overs to play.
Australia posted totals of 473 and 230, both declared prematurely, with the Poms struggling to take consistent wickets.
Root lamented his bowlers’ refusal to pitch the ball up, saying they made the same mistake last time in Australia and haven’t learnt their lesson.
“When we look at ball in hand in particular, I don’t think we bowled the right length,” he said post-game.
“If we’re being brutally honest we need to bowl fuller, and as soon as we did in the second innings we created so many chances, we made it very hard work (for Australia).
“We just need to do that more, we need to be a bit braver, get the ball up there a bit further, because when we do we’re going to create chances and we’re going to move life difficult.
“So that’s one of the frustrating things, it’s something we did four years ago and we got it wrong and we didn’t learn from it.
“Similarly, we made mistakes throughout the week that we made last week, whether it be no-balls, missed chances, we just have to be better and we’ve got to learn those lessons very quickly ahead of next week.”
While Root had the confidence to speak his mind after the tough loss, Australian Test great Chris Rogers believes the English captain might be wrongly reading the situation.
Dissecting the Test match after Australia’s win for SEN Test Cricket, Rogers suggested it might be Root’s fault his bowlers couldn’t hit the right length.
“The thing that stood out to me in what Joe Root said was that they bowled too short and then you think, ‘Hang on, you set the fields, they bowl to your fields and that’s why they bowled so short’,” Rogers said.
“If he doesn’t recognise that, I think they have some real issues.”
England brought in veterans James Anderson and Stuart Broad for the second Test, dropping Jack Leach and Mark Wood.
They’re needing a win in the third Test in Melbourne in order to keep the hope of winning back the Urn alive.