Eng vs NZ, 2nd Test – Crumpled but still a good fit, Root dons his blazer for the England cause once more

The pockets were still full of “about 30” old team-sheets, creased after spending the last four years not just untouched but stuffed in a garage cupboard. But, crucially, the blazer still fits.

It was at the end of last week, before making the journey from his home in Sheffield down to south London ahead of the second New Zealand Test that Joe Root retrieved his navy blue, embroidered Test captain blazer from its dark hiding place. He will don it on Wednesday when he tosses at the Kia Oval, having last done so in Grenada back in March 2022.

The blazer’s storage site speaks volumes. It was made to measure but it’s not been hung up, either in a wardrobe or on display. It’s not even been in the main house, but the garage. And not even out and about like a bag of old golf clubs, but hidden away like a cursed boardgame. And you can understand why.

It is no secret that the Test captaincy broke Root. For all its honour, it morphed into an unbearable hindrance, weighing awkwardly on his shoulders in a manner no tailor could fix.

Root’s record was fine, with 27 wins and 26 defeats. The circumstances in which he was operating were rarely ideal; white-ball cricket was prioritised for the first half of his tenure, leading up to England’s 2019 World Cup win; thereafter he had to lead through Covid-19 and all the issues that presented. But toxic elements of the job seeped out into cordoned-off places in his life. His resignation statement referenced the “toll” of five years in the job, and the effect it was having on his personal life. Those memories are still not far from the surface.

“I found I ended up being so consumed with everything,” said Root on Tuesday, when asked of the eventual tax paid after a long stint as captain.

“I wasn’t the person I wanted to be and it was the right time to step away. Not just because our performances weren’t where they needed to be. It was a great opportunity for a fresh start for English cricket and was absolutely the right decision.”

There are clear similarities between Root’s words here and the situation that is creeping up on Ben Stokes. Even prior to the breach of curfew that caused Stokes’ absence from this Test, and may yet prevent his return as captain, there were breadcrumbs to show how the job has tightened around him.

During an in-house interview in April, Stokes spoke of being “completely and utterly consumed” with his preparations for this summer, and unable to “switch off for half an hour” without jotting down notes on his iPad. This came after admitting he had gone to “pretty extreme” places during the winter’s 4-1 Ashes defeat. Stokes actually meant this as an indication of how committed he was to continue, but it set alarm bells ringing and they have only got louder over the last eight days.

Root himself endured two failed Australian tours as captain, and these stayed with him, too. The final straw came in his series defeat in the West Indies that followed soon after the latter in 2021-22. By then, in the dregs of a dispiriting run of just one win in 17 Tests, he was at the point of his tenure when he felt that he himself was the problem.

Among the main takeaways from Root’s last days as captain were those feelings of isolation. Socially, he became distant from his team-mates, as much by choice as the way such relationships usually evolve.

Any player’s rise from the ranks to leadership eventually brings with it professional distance, and Root found this particularly jarring from those he had previously been close with. On the field, there was not so much a distrust in Root’s methods but more of a lack of commitment to his plans, exacerbating the sense he did not have a grasp of his team.

Ironically, it was Stokes who exacerbated that during the 2021-22 Ashes, particularly in Sydney when, with England short-staffed due to a Covid outbreak, he led a handful of players back to the team hotel instead of doing their bit for those whose sessions had not finished yet. A few months later in the Caribbean, Stokes could not have been a better ally, even jokingly (or not?) warning journalists to go easy on his best mate.

Even in this current mess, there is an underlying neatness to Root’s return. Much has changed since his last dabble with the captaincy, showcased by the fact the team he will skipper for his 65th Test as captain has no other survivors from his 64th. Not only is he just 48 runs away from the 14,000 mark, but he has the opportunity to correct a quirk in his captaincy, having never overseen a victory over New Zealand in six attempts.

For a man who has given so much to English cricket, Root’s latest act is another of vital servitude, and of far greater importance than simply coming in at two-down for not many.

For the ECB, it brings some much-needed goodwill. There is no cricketer more loved by the English public than Root. The acclaim when his name is read out as captain on day one at The Kia Oval will no doubt reflect as much. Inadvertently, the governing body have happened upon a public-relations masterstroke after a tough few months on that front.

For the players, he is a bastion of solidity, a rock for the debutants and relative newbies to lean on. Even Harry Brook can now keep his head down as vice-captain, instead of having to answer awkward questions about his own nightclub shenanigans, after getting lamped by a bouncer in Wellington ahead of the Ashes. In theory, it also makes a return for Stokes cleaner than if Brook had taken over and extended his white-ball partnership with Brendon McCullum. The pair have grown close since working together in limited-overs cricket, and a Brook-led Test side is easier to envisage without a certain allrounder as the elephant in the changing-room.

Above all, however, Root is returning a favour to Stokes. One of Stokes’ first acts as captain was to cement Root at No.4 and give him free rein to build himself into his final form as a world-beating batter. Four unburdened years have resulted in 4,063 runs at an average of 54.9, along with 16 of his 41 Test hundreds, including two in Australia. Now, Root is buying time for Stokes to come out the other side of a potentially terminal ordeal.

How much time? That remains to be seen. For the foreseeable future, one of England’s greatest is giving another a shot at redemption, by taking on something he was happy to stuff away in the depths of a cupboard in his garage.

Vithushan Ehantharajah is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo

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