ROOT HAS HIGH HOPES FOR BEN
JOE ROOT has backed Ben Stokes to help put a smile back on the face of English cricket with a star turn in the Ashes.
England’s all-rounder is on target to play his first competitive cricket since taking time away from the game this summer with a finger injury and burnout.
Root insists he will ease him back gently but admitted that it was “brilliant” to have his talisman back.
“It’s really nice to have him back involved,” said Root. “Ben has been fully involved in training. He’s had a bat, a bowl, taken some catches and is doing his fielding work slightly separately.
“I am hoping he will be fit for the first Test and it’s been remarkable to see how far he’s come.”
English cricket has gone through the wringer recently with Covid, financial worries, the curtailment of the India series and now the racism scandal gripping
Root’s Yorkshire club.
On the field England’s white ball side slipped to an agonising semi-final defeat in the T20 World Cup on Wednesday.
The Test side, currently training on the Gold Coast in Queensland, will be joined by five members of the T20 squad and coach Chris Silverwood.
But white ball captain Eoin Morgan has been told he can choose when he stands down.
Silverwood and Morgan, 35, are already planning for the next T20 tournament in Australia next year and the value of the limited-overs skipper is undimmed.
Silverwood said: “For me, the longer he is there, the better.”
MATTHEW WADE hit three successive sixes to clinch victory as Australia beat Pakistan by five wickets to book their place in the T20 World Cup final against New Zealand.