England Cricket Team arrived in Pakistan on November 27th for a historic Test series between the two sides. It will be the first time a Pak vs Eng Test series will be played on Pakistani soil in 17 years. The last time it happened was back in 2015.
With the stages all set to host the historic test series, it has been reported that 14 English visitors, including the skipper Ben Stokes, have caught the virus. Due to the captain’s illness, Joe Root attended the press conference, where he faced a plethora of questions.
One of the many questions was about Root’s ICC Test rankings, which could be replaced by Pakistani batting delight Babar Azam anytime sooner, the experienced batter said,
“Babar Azam is certainly one of the brilliant players. He is consistent across the three formats; he has done extremely well in Test cricket for a couple of years. The bowlers must play well to keep him quiet, and he is relatively younger than me.
Root, the former England men’s cricket team’s test skipper, would make sure the best of Babar does not come versus England. He also feels Babar is not yet touching the climax, and a lot more is to witness.
Few of the other players in the England squad, and I feel like the best is yet to come from him, but we gonna make sure that his best will never be against us in the next three games, but overall he is a hell of a player, and he is great to watch.”
Root, who was replaced by Ben Stokes as England’s test captain, says there is no chance that he would take the seat again. He was asked if he would take over as a skipper while Stokes is ill ahead of the Pak vs Eng 1st Test. The 31-year-old responded,
“I have stayed far away from that these days. Even though I am doing this (presser) today, this is where the buck stops; I am not doing anything else.
“I don’t think so (captaincy chances), no, I don’t think so. Hopefully, that is not even a conversation that we needed to entertain. Pope did it the other day, and I think he did a great job,”
Since many England players have fallen ill, Root has denied the rumours that it is something like COVID or a serious illness. While addressing the question, he said the training session was already not mandatory. Hence, it was not entirely due to the virus that the players did not attend it. He feels it is a 24-hour virus and would go away with mandatory measures being taken.
As far as I am concerned, a few guys are not feeling 100 per cent. And I didn’t feel better yesterday; I woke up a lot better today. Hopefully, it’s a 24-hours virus. I don’t think it’s food poisoning or Covid or anything like that,”
“I think it’s just one of those things that we have picked up as a group. We tried to make sure we prepared really well for this game, and sometimes, life throws these kinds of things at you, but we have to make sure how we have to be prepared for tomorrow.
“It’s hard to say; I have not seen anyone this morning. I got straight into the bus. The guys will do everything they can; they worked hard in that respect. Time will tell, I guess,”
“It’s a strain. Today is generally an optional session. A few of the guys wouldn’t have come in, anyway. You can’t do much of anything, anyways. Stay hydrated. Sometimes, you pick up a bug or a virus. It can spread around when you are all tied together at a hotel. We have done everything we can to try and mitigate it.”
