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