Joe Root looks back at poor Test performance in 2019 for England
2019 will always be special for England as it is the year where they won their first-ever 50-over World Cup and finally broke the jinx. However, as far as the longest format of the game is concerned, it was a year for them to forget.
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The most painful defeat was probably losing the Urn to Australia in their own conditions as the Aussies levelled the series 2-2 thereby retaining the Ashes. Joe Root spoke about his disappoinment with regard to the year gone by.
"It's been frustrating. It's been quite a big year of transition in Test cricket. There's been a lot of change over the year," said Root.
England have played 12 tests in 2019, winning four, drawing two and losing six of them. These losses included losses to West Indies, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. They almost were on the verge of losing to Ireland too, which was very much concerning as a team. Before the start of the year, England were in Sri Lanka and had won the Test series 3-0, which showed that they had the potential to be a good travelling team. But defeats in conditions similar to their home has let them down the most in 2019.
Root though is still looking at things positively and is hopeful that 2020 will bring in a fresh sense of positivity for him and his team. The English Test captain is hopeful that his team will learn from the experiences in 2019 and play much better in order to have a better 2020.
"There is still a long way that this team can go and we are looking at all the areas where we can get better," Root asserted.
"Over time, if we can learn these lessons and find ways of shifting our mentality into the first innings from the second innings, then we are going to give ourselves a much better chance of winning games," he concluded.