England Will Field Their Best Possible Playing 11 Against India: Joe Root

Test skipper Joe Root has hinted that England will put to rest their much-talked-about rotation policy in order to pick their best possible team for the upcoming five-match series against Virat Kohli’s Team India.

England did not pick their best playing 11 throughout the winter during the Test rubbers in Sri Lanka and India as they regularly rested their players citing workload management due to a bumper cricket season which includes the T20 World Cup and the Ashes.

Jonny Bairstow was rested for the first couple of Tests in India while Jos Buttler played two Tests in Sri Lanka and one in India before missing the last three matches of the series only to return for the white-ball fixtures.

The rotation policy continued during the home summer as England rested several first-choice players for the two-match series against New Zealand.

As a result, England have now lost four of their last five Tests which includes their first home series defeat in 7 years, and criticism has intensified due to their reluctance to field their best playing 11.

Joe Root admitted that a few compromises have been made with regards to selection in the past 10-12 months but with ten ‘hard’ Test matches coming up against India and Australia, England will now be looking to field their best possible starting XI.

‘’We are coming into a period of time now where rest and rotation is put behind us. With Covid, and the amount of cricket that we’ve had, there’s been compromises made over different formats and different teams. We now have 10 very hard Test matches against two brilliant opposition coming up but it is a great opportunity for us to play some strong cricket and, if everyone is fit and available, we will have a good team ourselves. I’d like to think that over the next five Test matches we’ll be trying to play our strongest side, or have our strongest squad available for those games.” Root said as quoted by The Independent.

England will square-off against India in a grueling five-match rubber at home from August 04 in Nottingham. They will then travel to Australia later this year in a bid to regain the Ashes after 6 years.

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