Joe Root defends team selection; says fielding and batting let England down

Joe Root

England captain Joe Root blamed the batting and fielding effort of the side for the nine-wicket loss in the Ashes opener at the Gabba on Saturday, adding that there was nothing wrong with team selection.

The tourists­ - after a brief fightback on Day Three - lost eight wickets on the morning of Day Four for just 77 runs as their innings folded up for 297 runs. Australia, set a target of 20 runs, finished the job in the sixth over for the loss of Alex Carey. The England team management has drawn flak for resting pace spearheads Stuart Broad and James Anderson.

But Root came to coach Chris Silverwood rescue, saying, "One thing I will say is we wanted variation in our attack, we wanted to be able to change the pace of the game and move through different gears throughout the innings. We created so many chances and our bowlers were excellent.

"We beat the bat a huge amount of times, we banged out the areas that you want to on this kind of wicket, we've just got to be better in the field. Similar with the bat, 40 [runs] for four [wickets] is no position to start a Test series," Root said.

Brief scores
England 147 & 297 (J Root 89, D Malan 82; N Lyon 4-91) lost to Australia 425 & 20-1 by 9 wkts

England fined, docked points

England have been fined 100 per cent of their match fees and see a deduction of five ICC World Test Championship (WTC) points for maintaining a slow over-rate in the first Test. Match Referee David Boon imposed the sanction after Joe Root's side was found to be five overs short of the target with time allowances taken into consideration.

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