England Test captain Joe Root said that he hopes that the controversial England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) policy of resting and rotating players comes to an end ahead of the upcoming five-match Test series against India begins in August.
The rest and rotation policy came under severe scrutiny earlier this year during the series against India and New Zealand. England lost both the series, getting beaten 1-3 by India and 0-1 by New Zealand.
After the India Test series, England will travel to Australia for the Ashes 2021-22 and play five Test matches as well.
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"We are coming into a period of time now where rest and rotation is put behind us. Hopefully, if everyone is fit, we are going to have our best team available for what is to follow. That's really exciting and something I'm very much looking forward to," ESPNCricinfo quoted Root as saying.
"We have ten very hard Test matches against two brilliant opposition coming up but it is a great opportunity for us to play some strong cricket and if everyone is fit and available we will have a good team ourselves," he added.
Joe Root wants to field the best possible playing XI against India and Australia and said that it hurt him seeing England not making the finals of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC).
"I'd like to think that, over the next five Test matches, we'll be trying to play our strongest side or have our strongest squad available for those games. This is, I suppose, what you do it for: to ready yourself for this lead-in and for in particular that Ashes. To make sure everyone's peaking for that, and these big games," said Root.
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"Watching the WTC final and not being part of it, it makes you want to be a part of something quite special like that. We have an opportunity now to go a bit further and better than we did the first time out. I'm looking forward to hopefully starting well with a full squad of players to pick from," he added.
England players are not allowed to take their families to Australia for the Ashes 2021-22 and Joe Root hopes the situation changes since ECB has requested CA to change their stance.
"I really hope the families will be in Australia. It's a really important aspect of that tour. With the amount of cricket that we've got it's going to be really important that that is the case. I can't give you an answer. It's not something I know as fact or not as yet, but I'm very hopeful that will be the case," said Root.
(ANI inputs)
