England are missing a number of members of their coaching staff ahead of the fourth Ashes Test but this should be seen as an opportunity for the players to come together and steel up, captain Joe Root has said. England’s campaign in Australia went from bad to worse after a raft of Covid-19 cases came up within their coaching staff and net bowlers.
“With the amount of coaches we have had missing, it has made things slightly disjointed and challenging but it is an opportunity for us as a group to come together and work together,” Root said of the training set-up also missing bowling coaches Jon Lewis and Jeetan Patel as well as strength and conditioning specialist Darren Veness.
“Human beings work together and help each other, and we tried to prepare as well as we can do and stand up in a bit of adversity and we must use that in a positive way when we get out on the field.
“It should absolutely bring us together. Sometimes when you look around the dressing room and you know that someone’s put that hard work in and helped you out, it can galvanise a team.
“I think that’s is what we need right now, to really get tight and stick together. It would be easy to get fractious and point fingers at who could be better here or there, but ultimately we are in this together.
“We’re where we are because, as a team collectively, we have not performed as well as we can and we’ve got two opportunities to put that right,” said Root.
Root has been unable to score a century in this series but he has been almost a lone warrior with the bat as his team mates have largely struggled around him. His team’s performances have led to calls from a number of former players and pundits for Root to be sacked as England captain.
“I’ll look at my future beyond this tour at the end of it,” said Root.
“I think they are questions for me to answer (but) I don’t think that’s a distraction that should be around the group, or I should be wasting energy on right now. I need to make sure I throw everything I can into these two games. I think I owe that to this team and to the players, and that will give us the best chance of getting the results we desire. All I can control right now is the next two games,” he said.
