After England lost to South Africa in the first of the 3-match ODI series, their fifth loss in the last 7 home games, Joe Root described their white-ball struggles as "the perfect storm." Under Jos Buttler’s captaincy, England lost the T20I and ODI series to India by 2-1 earlier this month.
The team's recent slump has been caused by many different factors, according to veteran player Joe Root.
“It’s like the perfect storm of everything coming together. And when it doesn’t go well it’s really important that you stay strong, you stick to how you want to approach things as a group, and you fully believe it and back it. We’ve shown that we can do that before and I’m very confident we’ll be doing that again in the near future,” Root was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
Apart from the former skipper Eoin Morgan who led the team to 2019 World Cup glory announcing his retirement from international cricket earlier this month, England is dealing with a number of injuries, with several match-winners including the likes of Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, and Chris Woakes, among others, unavailable for the long term.
"There’s still a lot of players that aren’t available for selection at the minute through injury. And in the last series, you didn’t have big senior players step up with performances, like myself," Root stated.
He backed Buttler’s captaincy saying that it takes time for the changes to bed in.
"I know Jos has got a great cricket mind, he understands this game brilliantly. He’s going to be a great captain. I don’t think these results are a fair reflection on the way that he’s going about his business as a leader. Sometimes it does take time for things to bed in. I don’t think it will take that long with Jos," he said.
The home team lost the 1st ODI against the Proteas at Chester-le Street by 62 runs. The 2nd and 3rd ODI will be played on Friday (July 22) and Sunday (July 24).
(THE GUARDIAN INPUTS)
