WI v ENG 2019: Root not worried about England's struggles at the top

Keaton Jennings and Rory Burns scored runs but quite inconsistently in Sri Lanka.

Burns was seen struggling on turning pitches in the island nation | Getty

Joe Root is not too concerned with inconsistent performances from his team's top-three slots. The England captain is backing the likes of Keaton Jennings, Rory Burns and Jonny Bairstow to excel during the upcoming three-match Test series against West Indies. 

"We are playing to our strengths. We have to manage expectations and understand that it might not be the top four who score the bulk of the runs," Root told BBC Sport before the first Test in Barbados begins on Thursday, January 24, "We have a very strong middle order and the wickets we have played on have generally been difficult at the start, putting pressure on the top order. As long as we are scoring enough runs to win games of cricket, that is the important thing."

"Maybe there will be more workload at the back end of an innings. That suits the way we set up at the moment - it's important that the guys keep remembering that. Hopefully, it will turn out that we score runs everywhere."

It is a very important year for English cricket. They strive to win their second Test series in the Caribbean since 1968 before all the energies are put into clinching a maiden ICC Cricket World Cup triumph on home shores and of course, there is another Ashes to look forward to. 

"You can't ignore it - it's an exciting summer, with a huge amount of exciting cricket to come. It is something that everyone is really looking forward to," Root further said, "But a strong message in the dressing room is that our full focus is on this tour, to make sure we are doing everything we can to win this series."

"The way we played in Sri Lanka, if we can transfer a lot of that into this series we'll be really pleased by the end of it."

(Inputs from Cricbuzz)

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 23 Jan, 2019

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