Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

No surprises here. Root to be the new skipper.

CMS get it right again!

Stokes as vc. Northern biased!

Christchurch is on the south island...

Fair enough, you've got me there, Arthur!

England will have to be very careful with Root's workload from here on out. He's an automatic pick in all three formats after all.

I often wonder how much say the Captain gets in the squad for a Series / Test. I doubt Root will bring anything new to England, his success as a Captain will very much depend on whether Hameed and Jennings push on and if England can solve the spin problem. It will also be interesting to see if he keeps batting at 3 now he's in charge.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Christchurch is on the south island...

I thought Christchurch is in Dorset

I'd be tempted to take him out of the 20/20 stuff, as we seem to have an abundance of batting talent in this format.

Hardly matters though, there are so few and there are no T20 only tours apart from the WC. And maybe it's not reasonable to potentially shut off the possibility of him treading the T20 circuit some time in the future. It'd mean more to give him a tour or home series off every year.

From a workload point of view, Root missing the home ODI series against West Indies ahead of The Ashes and tour of New Zealand is one option. Another window of rest is the Twenty20 tri-series between Aus/Eng/NZ in February 2018.

Looking at the Future Tours Programme, England look to be busy from May 2017 to November 2018. Though after touring Sri Lanka there is a near two month break before touring the West Indies in late January 2019.

I suspect any period of rest from Root is any one off T20is and lesser availability for Yorkshire.

I suppose there is also a question about how this effects the ODI Test team balance. With Cook as Captain of the Test side and Morgan as Captain of the ODI side there was little confusion that they were separate projects, neither was likely to have any say or part in the other's sphere of influence. Now with Root as Captain of the Test side and a key part of the ODI side will that continue? If Root is going to be in there seeing the ODI players close up does it reopen the prospect of the ODI side being a proving ground for Test players?

There will be some separation of captaincy. Buttler is the captain in waiting in LOIs. Otherwise the link is already in place at coaching level.

Apart from being inevitable, I'm reasonably content with Root as skipper. I wonder about Stokes though, who seems to be continually in verbal and emotional conflict with the opposition, and rarely seems to come out on top. I'm guessing that a lot of the decision had something to do with the profile of England and how it can be sold. Stokes in fact says he doesn't have any interest in doing the captaincy job. Though maybe he just didn't want to appear to be after Cook's position. Going on how they express their thoughts and conduct themselves, I suggest have a punt on Woakes or Moeen.

it has started already, Arthur. Just saw a comment on how England got themselves a root on Valentine's day (which it is here).

Fred Root played in the Ashes of 1926, so we may have heard all of this before. Apparently he bowled an early version of Bodyline. England won the Ashes 1-0.