'In emergency, break glass' - England seek stability in Root

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Joe Root, left, and Ben Stokes have played 119 Tests together By Stephan Shemilt Cricket Correspondent Published 15 minutes ago In emergency, break glass. Get Joe Root. How many times have England needed Root to dig them out of a hole? Close your eyes and you can picture it. Two wickets down, next to no runs on the board, Root striding down the steps and stretching at the boundary's edge before sprinting halfway to the crease. And now this. An SOS to England's greatest ever batter to clean up the mess made in a London nightclub. On the day Harry Brook replaced his fellow Yorkshireman at the top of the Test batting rankings, it is not the vice-captain England have asked to step in as interim captain, but the former skipper. The investigation into Ben Stokes' actions in the early hours of Monday morning has left England with a very specific set of circumstances. If Stokes was ruled out of the second Test against New Zealand at The Oval next week because of an injury, it seems likely Brook would have been given the job. Despite his misdemeanours in the winter, Brook retained the captaincy of the limited-overs team and led them to the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup. He will be England captain next month for the white-ball series against India. Yet to have a situation where one captain is out of the team because of an incident in a nightclub, only to be replaced by another captain who eight months ago was punched outside a nightclub in Wellington, would have been absurd. Stokes out of England squad, Root named captain Published 51 minutes ago Stokes should not be sacked as captain - Vaughan Published 4 hours ago What does Root make of it all? It is worth remembering he was largely distanced from the boozing in Noosa, the sole England player to have his family present on the mid-Ashes series holiday. Does Root ever look around the dressing room, which he once shared with the likes of Alastair Cook, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, and wonder how he was left as the one grown-up in the room? His 13,952 Test runs have not just appeared out of the Yorkshire ether. They are the product of 14 years of dedication, desire and diligence. And he has done his time as England captain. Five years and 64 matches – more than any other man to hold the office. It is a job that can leave a cricketer feeling twice as old and half as happy, and there was a sense the crown never really sat comfortably on Root's head. He bucked a trend when his own batting form improved while the team fell apart around him. Root later explained that being alone at the crease was the only time he felt like he was getting any peace. By the end, after one win in 17 matches and a traumatic Covid-affected Ashes tour of Australia, Root was done. There would have been absolutely no desire to go through any of it again. Root would have been well within his rights to tell England to jog on when his name arose as a potential solution to this latest crisis