Can’t hide behind excuses, concedes Root

Joe Root said it would be wrong to ‘hide behind excuses’ after England was knocked out of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 by Pakistan in the first semi-final.

The slowness of the pitch and the choice of playing the semi-final on a used track came under the scanner after England was bowled out for 211, with Eoin Morgan saying there was no ‘home advantage’ for his side.

Morgan’s deputy, though, said England should stay clear from blaming the conditions for the loss.

“We can make excuses, we can say the wicket was more favourable to Pakistan,” Root said after the match. “Of course, when you're playing at home, you'd like to think conditions are going to be slightly favourable to you. But, you still have to play your best on a number of different surfaces if you are going to win a major tournament. Yes, it's frustrating, but to be brutally honest, we weren't at our best and it would be wrong to hide behind excuses.

“Yes it’s frustrating, very frustrating. We played really well in the competition but we weren’t at our best on the day. We knew that to get through a semifinal, we had to be somewhere near our best. Still sore, the lads are feeling disappointed but we have to make sure we bounce back for an important T20 series (against South Africa) and then moving forward as a side. Slightly frustrating right now but plenty to look forward to in the future.”

England was in a decent position at 128 for 2 before Root’s dismissal triggered a collapse. The middle-order couldn’t cope with Pakistan’s relentless attack and the sluggish pitch.

Root said England seemed set for a score in excess of 320 at one stage but couldn’t get going once the ball started reverse-swinging.

“I think for the first part of our innings, we played pretty well,” he assessed. “We got ourselves in a position where 300-320 was a realistic possibility, and the way we've been playing, maybe even more. Once that ball started reversing, credit to Pakistan, they put it in very good areas and made it very difficult to build new partnerships once we lost a couple of wickets. I think those 15 overs in the middle when we lost quite a few wickets was vital.”

More than the pitch, the reason England slumped in that period was its inability to modify its usually aggressive style of play. No batsman ground through the middle overs, and paid the price for over-aggression on a surface that just didn’t allow it.

Root, however, said England should stick to its style of play in the future as it gave it a chance to put up scores above 400.

“No,” he emphasised strongly when asked if it needed at least one more batsman like him for such conditions.

“I think we need to continue playing exactly as we are and just get better at it. The more experience guys get in that middle order, the more they learn to play on these surfaces. I think it'd be wrong to change the approach we've had. We’ve been playing fantastically well and it's important that we keep that positivity in our batting, because if we change that, we'll change our chances of getting scores of 400+ which we're more than capable of scoring.”