Joe Root's second tenure as England Test cricket captain begins against Pakistan with no Ben Stokes and victories vital
England start post-Ben Stokes era with three-Test series against Pakistan, live on Sky Sports from Wednesday (11am first ball); Joe Root back in charge and plans to mix best of Bazball with a bit more nuance; hosts will miss talismanic Stokes, who is replaced in the XI by Dan Lawrence
Tuesday 18 August 2026 09:30, UK
Who's ready for another reset?
England had one of those after their dismal Ashes winter and it started well enough with a Lord's victory over New Zealand, albeit in a two-day rollercoaster ride on a dreadful pitch that meant it was hard to gauge whether any genuine progress had been made.
But that reset soon came crashing down amid familiar old failings of drink-related off-field incidents and witless shots on it. A depleted England side were annihilated at The Oval before a drubbing at Trent Bridge consigned them to a rare home Test series loss.
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Captain Ben Stokes decided he had had enough (bizarrely revealing that midway through a bowling spell at Nottingham and then, the showman that he is, promptly taking a wicket), while coach Brendon McCullum received the tap on the shoulder. Bazball done.
Now we have reset 2.0 with a new skipper - and an old one, too, with Joe Root retaking the job he previously held from 2017-2022 - and a new permanent coach, although not straight away with Stephen Fleming only taking over in earnest ahead of the South Africa trip this winter, leaving Marcus Trescothick in interim charge against Pakistan from Wednesday, live on Sky Sports.
For good or for bad, we knew how England's Bazballers would approach a Test match but with Baz and Ben now gone - the former moving into international retirement, the latter focusing on his role as white-ball head coach - it will be intriguing to see how the style evolves in Root's second term at the helm.
How will England look to play under Root?
Root stressed to Sky Sports' Michael Atherton that he did not want to be seen as a "negative captain" after the issue of England not appearing to even attempt a chase of 273 against New Zealand at Lord's under his leadership in 2021 was brought up - Dom Sibley's dead-batted 60 off 207 balls highlighted that mindset.
He spoke glowingly about the effect Bazball had on "taking the fear away" from players and how much he had enjoyed being part of it. He plans to take that into his latest stint as leader but also bring a bit more situational awareness.
In one of Stokes' first interviews as captain four years ago, he was adamant he would never play for a draw. Root, though, explained to Atherton that his England would understand when that was sometimes the way to go. It seems a bit of nuance is coming.
And that is all England fans and followers have been crying out for.
Bazball was not inherently bad, in fact it was inherently good in lifting the team out of the funk they were in after a long period of poor results and oppressive Covid bubbles beforehand.
But it was also inherently flawed and never really sustainable. Root's job now is to channel the best bits of Bazball, add his own stamp and build a winning machine. If England can play as Root bats, then they probably won't go far wrong.
You could never accuse Root of being negative with the blade - we often hear pundits mention how you look up and England's all-time leading run-scorer is on 30 from 30 balls or similar - but he knows when to dial things down and how to win games.
Time for England to start winning again
Winning is not something England are too familiar with in Test cricket at the moment. Their implosion against New Zealand at Trent Bridge in June means they have lost seven and won just two of their last 10 matches. Both of those wins came in two-day toss-ups.
Victories also eluded England during the final part of Root's first spell in charge, with just one across 17 matches before he left in April 2022 but it is worth remembering how taxing that Covid period was and that he didn't always have his best players available.
Root may never be a tactical genius, may not have the gutfeel Stokes had for captaincy - the failed short-ball barrage he deployed against New Zealand while standing in for Stokes at The Oval earlier this summer, dubbed "brainless" by Atherton, was a howler.
Yet he is England's winning-most captain ever, with 27 victories, one more than Michael Vaughan and three more than Stokes and Sir Alastair Cook.
Plus, he feels time has made him realise what he does and does not need to get involved in as skipper and that he must not over-bowl a prized asset in Jofra Archer, something he admitted he was perhaps guilty of in the past.
There is a fear that Root's run-scoring could diminish with the added pressures of captaincy but that did not happen during the Covid era when he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, so it probably won't now either.
Root was not the sexiest choice to be England captain - Sky Sports' Mark Butcher called going back to him "retrograde" and it hardly speaks volumes about succession planning.
However, with Harry Brook's nightclub incident late last year still pretty fresh and Jacob Bethell remaining very nascent in his Test career, and injured now anyway, Root's appointment makes sense.
Stokes retirement leaves big void to fill
He has so many attributes to make this work, including previous experience and the complete respect of his team-mates, but what he doesn't have is Stokes.
Replacing Stokes in the XI is one thing - Dan Lawrence will do it against Pakistan, Sam Curran or Rehan Ahmed could do it in the future. Replacing his aura, all-round aptitude and ability to dig England out of a hole time and time again is almost impossible.
While maybe not the player he was, Stokes' departure means England are worse off.
The feeling, either genuine or just because it would be one hell of a story, is that Stokes could return for The Ashes next summer, a series England will be looking to win for the first time since 2015. Stokes says he won't but it would be no surprise if he did.
For now, though, England need to forget about Stokes and forget about The Ashes. The time has come to win again, starting against Pakistan. Let the new era begin - without the old mistakes.
Watch day one of the first Test between England and Pakistan, at Headingley, live on Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Main Event from 10.15am on Wednesday (11am first ball). Stream cricket and more sport contract-free with NOW.
England vs Pakistan Test series fixtures
- First Test (Headingley) - Wednesday August 19 - Sunday August 23 (first ball 11am)
- Second Test (Lord's) - Thursday August 27 - Monday August 31 (first ball 11am)
- Third Test (Edgbaston) - Wednesday September 9 - Sunday September 13 (first ball 11am)
