Joe Root urges England players to ‘be adults’ as captain removes curfew

A new era of English cricket will begin at Headingley next Wednesday when Root leads the team against Pakistan in the first Test match since Ben Stokes retired from international cricket and Brendon McCullum lost his job as red-ball head coach.

The main controversy at the end of the ‘Bazball’ tenure was an incident in June at London nightclub Rex Rooms, where Stokes and Gus Atkinson were out past a midnight curfew put in place by England men’s managing director Rob Key, which occurred after Harry Brook was fined for an altercation with a bouncer in New Zealand last November.

During an interview on this week’s Sky Sports Cricket Podcast with Michael Atherton, Root said: “There’s not going to be a curfew. I don’t think this needs to be a big deal, to be honest.

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“My view on curfews is I don’t think they work, and if you want guys to take responsibility on the field they’ve got to be able to feel they can be grown adults off it and make good strong decisions off it.

“That’s for us as a team to manage well, and self-police well, for me and ‘Flem’ (Stephen Fleming) to manage well in many ways but ultimately you’re grown adults, you know what it takes to play for England, you know what your responsibilities are off the field and we need to make sure we don’t find ourselves with any little situations off the field.

“We should be known for how we play our cricket and what we do on the field, we should be on the back pages of the newspapers and people reading about that sort of stuff.

“Be adults, look after yourselves, look after each other, create a good strong culture when you know when the right time is to celebrate and enjoy a win or to have a sensible beer or whatever, but remember you’re playing for England.”

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Meanwhile, England opener Emilio Gay will get the chance to prove his fitness in a warm-up fixture against Pakistan this week.

Gay made his Test debut earlier in the summer and was primed to open in the upcoming three-match series with Pakistan until he suffered a shoulder injury for Durham in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup against Middlesex on Thursday.

The right shoulder issue will be tested by Gay this week after he was included in a 14-player squad for the Professional County Club Select XI match against Pakistan, which is a three-day fixture.

The warm-up match in Beckenham will begin on Thursday and England spinner Shoaib Bashir is set to be involved.

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It will represent the final chance for Bashir to impress before England’s new era begins at Headingley on August 19, with Marcus Trescothick in interim charge before Stephen Fleming takes over this winter.

It was announced last week that Dan Lawrence will bat at six in the first Test and the part-time off-breaks of the Surrey all-rounder may result in Bashir running drinks in Leeds.

James Rew and Matt Fisher, who both featured in a much-changed England line-up in the second Test of the New Zealand series at Kia Oval, will also be involved for the PCC Select XI.

Sussex batter Tom Haines will captain the team and 17-year-old Manny Lumsden of Hampshire is part of the squad.

PCC Select XI squad: T Haines (captain), S Bashir, L Benkenstein, C Falconer, M Fisher, E Gay, N Gilchrist, J Hull, M Lumsden, J Rew, J Sales, C Tear, N Thain & S Zaib.