Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Joe Root says he does not want to “completely rip everything up” from the Bazball era after becoming England Test captain for the second time in his career.
The 35-year-old took the role again earlier this week replacing Ben Stokes, who retired in June as England slid to a series defeat against New Zealand.
Root, who has a wealth of experience after captaining England for 65 Tests between 2017 and 2022, is planning to tweak the approach of Stokes and former coach Brendon McCullum rather than start from scratch.
“It’ll be trying to continue some of the good things we have done over that period (since 2022) and not finding ourselves back to where we were before Baz and Ben took over,” he said.
“Evolving and tweaking things to get us to where we want to be and really competing against the top nations consistently over a long period of time.
“The wrong thing to do would be to completely rip everything up that we’ve done over the last four years.
“There’s so much good stuff that Ben and Brendon did and changed the way we look at the game and see the game.
“But there are areas we want to sharpen up a little bit and become a little bit sterner with.”
Root was announced as Test captain on Thursday when Stephen Fleming was named as England new Test coach following McCullum’s dismissal from the red ball role.
Root said Fleming’s appointment was a big reason why he took up the Test captaincy for a second time.
“If I’m being brutally honest, he was a big reason why I wanted to do it,” he said.
“I’m very excited by the way he sees the game and where he sees us sit as a team and the work we have to do to get where we want to get to.”
Fleming will not be in charge for the upcoming Test series against Pakistan – Marcus Trescothick will be interim head coach when it gets underway at Headingley on August 19.
Fleming is due to arrive in the UK later in the summer to begin preparations for England’s winter tour to South Africa.
Root lost 27 of his 65 Tests and had a win percentage of 41.53 per cent in his first spell as captain and stepped down when he felt things got too much for him.
