It would be nice to keep Rohit quiet throughout the series: Joe Root

In an exclusive interview to JioCinema, recorded before the second Test in Visakhapatnam, Joe Root spoke about England’s generation next, his team’s strong belief in Bazball and how the visitors would like to keep India’s best batters in check.

Excerpts:

On watching England’s next generation come through 

It’s great and that’s all part and parcel of the game. If you play Test cricket for long periods of time, you’re going to see players leave the group and see young guys come in. The more you play, the more responsibility you have for trying to create a really enjoyable environment and one that allows them to thrive and feel as comfortable and as confident as possible. These young guys come in and I really feel they belong on this stage and have a purpose within the team.

On whether England doubted their Bazball ability after the first innings of the first Test

No. Regardless, of the result of the game, we’re always going to play how we know. It’s what’s given us success for a good period of time now. It’s what brings the best out of us. We’ve been in similar situations before. The last time we played India in England, in that one-off Test, we were miles behind in the game and we managed to chase that score down. There have been numerous other occasions where we've done things that we never thought we could have done before. So, we'll never stop believing, we'll never feel like we're out of the game. 

On Ollie Pope’s knock boosting the team’s confidence in Hyderabad

Ollie went out and probably played one of the best overseas innings you'll see in these conditions, especially against that attack on that surface. The more time we spend in these conditions, hopefully, we can continue to familiarize ourselves and keep that calmness about how we go about things. But also, when the chances are there and when the time’s right, we can keep applying pressure and then try to attack at the right moment. 

On whether England focuses on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli during team meetings 

We don’t really do team meetings anymore. That’s one of the great things about how we do all of our conversations away from the game and just that enjoyment and buzz about spending time with each other. We don’t have to sit in a meeting room and I think it’s more authentic and more genuine when you can have it around a dinner table. Having a coffee in the morning or whatever, I think that’s when you do your best learning.

You mentioned two of the greats of the modern era. Of course, there’s going to be focus. We know how good they are and they are also very senior within this current Indian batting lineup. So clearly they’ve got a big role to play within this Test team. You want to make sure that you try and get on top of them early. They’ve got the ability to get big scores and we’ve been on the wrong end of that a few times, so it would be nice to try and keep them as quiet as we can throughout the series.