England Test captain Joe Root has said that a fragile top order is not a big concern for the team as they prepare to take on the Windies in a three-Test series.
While the new opening pair of Keaton Jennings and Rory Burns got a hundred and a fifty between them in the away series against Sri Lanka, they haven’t consistently been able to give England strong starts. Now that Alastair Cook has retired, England are going to miss an experienced player at the top.
Captain Root, though, isn’t bothered too much, relying instead on the experience of those that come after the top two: himself, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler.
“We are playing to our strengths. We have to manage expectations and understand that it might not be the top four who score the bulk of the runs,” Root told BBC Sport.
“We have a very strong middle order and the wickets we have played on have generally been difficult at the start, putting pressure on the top order. As long as we are scoring enough runs to win games of cricket, that is the important thing.”
England have had a good run in the second half of 2018. They beat India 4-1 at home and then went on to sweep Sri Lanka 3-0 away. A victory in the West Indies will mark the end of a successful Test season before they focus on the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 at home later this year.
“You can’t ignore it, it’s an exciting summer, with a huge amount of exciting cricket to come,” Root acknowledged.
