London: Joe Root will have had a sleepless night after England’s defeat.
As captain you toss and turn mulling over every decision. You beat yourself up, that is the nature of captaincy and why it is a tough job.
He will have asked himself: “Should I have declared? Should I have batted on and made the game safe?” I hope he stays true to himself. I would prefer that at end of his time as captain he will be able to say: “I always tried to push the game and go for wins.”
If he does it again it will work for him. It was an attacking move and after he declared I did not speak to one person who said he had made a mistake. England did not lose because of the declaration. They lost because they dropped catches and West Indies batted brilliantly.
Root created an opportunity for the team to win but they were not good enough to take it. Joe had seen the fourth-day wicket spin, he had Anderson, Broad, Stokes and Woakes at his disposal.
You have to put faith in your bowlers to bowl West Indies out on a day-five pitch. He sent a positive message with his declaration.
It was a sign of how England will play under his captaincy. It would have been worse if England had batted on into the final day, set West Indies more than 400 and the game ended as a boring draw.
Instead Test cricket was revitalised at Headingley with a great game of cricket that shows the format can be vibrant and interesting.
It is down to captains to help make Test cricket entertaining and the more leaders that make positive decisions like Root or Michael Clarke used to for Australia, the better.
Not many captains in this era are brave and that does not help. I thought Joe spoke very well after the game. He did not make any excuses.
England lost the game with poor batting on day one, poor bowling on day two. As a captain I like the fact he did not blame bad light and say the game should have been called off.
The umpires showed common sense. Nobody was going to get hurt but if it had been day one or two they would have gone off. Cricket needs more common sense.
Overall I think it was a positive Test match for England, bar one or two concerns. Day one showed that when the ball is moving around England are still a vulnerable batting side.
The old habits resurfaced. They went a little bit too hard at the ball and played some iffy shots. Joe himself was the biggest culprit with that paddle sweep to Devendra Bishoo when he was nailing the game.
Do not gift your wicket away when on 59. Joe should be scoring more hundreds. He gets in and scores a 50 every game.
Virat Kohli and Steve Smith in home conditions go on and make big hundreds. Go and put yourself in that category Joe. You are asking team to be ruthless, so be ruthless yourself.
When England bowled they were again too short on the Headingley pitch. That worries me. England play Pakistan there next year, another good side, and then Australia at Headingley in 2019.
England have to bowl a better length. They seem to fear being driven. That fuller length was a nice driving length on the final day because the ball was not moving through the air but on the first and second days there was lateral movement but England bowled a little bit too short.
They were not willing to be driven and gamble on taking the edge. Tom Westley is an issue at No 3. I think he has a problem. I look at his technique and his head goes over to the off side too much.
His momentum is going over to the off side so when the ball is straight he lacks the balanced posture to put the front foot in the right position, which is why he was lbw in the first innings.
In the second innings he clearly panicked and played a big rash shot outside off stump.
Moving to the off side is fine but he needs to be very disciplined leaving the ball and then wait for the straight one on his legs to put away. If he can get into a balanced position and his head moving towards the ball then he will survive, but it will be tough. When England have lost in Test cricket in recent years they have been hammered and they have given us lots of reasons to criticise them, with the defeat by South Africa at Trent Bridge a case in point.
But at Headingley there were a lot of positives. They came back from a deficit of 169 runs and declared. Two of the top five were under huge pressure in Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan but responded with fifties. Malan, in particular, went away from his natural game to grind it out. That was mental toughness. Root was brave enough to declare. If they carry on being brave, fighting back and showing Malan’s toughness then they will be fine.
