Following their 151-run defeat against India at Lord’s in the second Test, England skipper Joe Root has vowed that his team will not be drawn into a verbal altercation with India.
The third Test of the five-match series is set to start from Wednesday at Headingley.
“There’s the theatre and everything else surrounding the game. We’ve got to make sure that we play the game how we want to play and we look after that as best as we can, and not get too distracted or drawn into anything that’s not honest,” said Root in the virtual pre-match media interaction.
“We’ve got to be genuine to ourselves, genuine to how we are as individuals and how we are collectively and be as good as we can, the way that we go. Virat’s team will play how they play, I just want us to go out and be the best version of ourselves.”
The second Test was played in an intense atmosphere with players of both teams not shying from constant sledging.
Joe Root admitted that tactical blunders have cost his side’s the Lord’s Test.
“I think there were always conversations you always try to find one percentres in ways you can deal with different situations.
“We’ve done some good learning off the back of the last game I think we could have managed certain areas differently, me as the captain, we could have gone about things slightly differently.
“We have got three massive games to play in this series, there’s a lot to play for. And you know we’re desperate to bounce back strongly,” he said.
England have dropped out of form opener Dom Sibley from the third Test and has recalled Dawid Malan, after the gap of three years.
“Dawid obviously offers a lot of experience in that top three, not necessarily in terms of experience in Test cricket, but he has played a huge amount of international cricket now, he’s dealt with pressure situations,” said Root.
“He’s played a lot of red ball cricket over the course of his career and he’s also had great successes in a massive series in Australia and was our leading scorer out there, so we know that he’s capable of big things,” he added.
