England's Chaotic Summer: Joe Root Reflects on Stokes and Team Dynamics

Joe Root called it “chaos”, “unusual”, “unsettling”. He could have added “defining”. Because when an England Test captain sits down to assess his summer and the first thing he mentions is Ben Stokes walking away from international cricket mid-series, you know this has been no ordinary few months.

Stokes’s exit, announced during a live contest against New Zealand, cut straight through the usual decorum of farewell tours and long goodbyes. Cricketers have gone mid-game before – Heather Knight did it at Lord’s in the women’s Test a fortnight later – but this was different. This was the heartbeat of Bazball unplugging himself while the music was still blaring.

Root, fiercely loyal, will not publicly question whether that grand, scene-stealing departure entirely matched the “selfless cricketers” mantra he and Stokes set out four years ago. Yet the symbolism was hard to ignore. England’s talisman leaving centre stage, New Zealand winning at Trent Bridge, and the Stokes era ending with a shrug rather than a roar.

And that was only part of the mess.

This was the week England properly crashed. Their first home series defeat in a three-Test (or longer) campaign for 14 years, capped by a New Zealand side laughing – quite literally – in their faces as the final wickets fell. Around it, two drink-related incidents bookended the chaos. If you wanted a snapshot of a team that had lost its bearings, you had it.

Only when England emotionally detached from Stokes and accepted that Bazball would never be fully exorcised without Brendon McCullum’s removal as head coach did the mood begin to steady. Even then, the sight of Brydon Carse in handcuffs in Derby, with Stokes somewhere in the background, suggested the turbulence hadn’t entirely cleared.

Yet something shifted. England started to feel more like a team again and less like a travelling circus.

They also discovered what it is to win a series and still share the spotlight with the losers. New Zealand in June, Australia during last winter’s Ashes – both knew that feeling. England got their turn against Pakistan. The cricket belonged to Joe Root’s side. Much of the noise did not.

Razaullah, just 21, demanded attention with that astonishing 81 at Edgbaston, a knock perfectly in tune with south Birmingham’s fondness for sudden, explosive drama. But Pakistan’s tour was a reminder that dysfunction comes in grades, and theirs was off the charts.

Scraps with Saracens players. A curfew that may or may not have been properly communicated. Then the real implosion: seven players sent home, the head coach and bowling coach dispatched as well, mobile phones confiscated, and the workings of a government-run board dragged into the light, exposing a regime that would rather no one talked about the treatment of the country’s greatest captain. Saj Sadiq, the long-time chronicler of Pakistan cricket’s madness, did not dress it up: “As an entire series, this has been the most embarrassing and difficult to watch. On and off the field Pakistan have been an absolute shambles.”

Against that backdrop, calling this a wasted England summer would be lazy.

Stephen Fleming has not even set foot in the dressing room yet – he arrives in the UK this week – but the incoming head coach will already have a decent feel for his squad, gleaned from highlight packages over breakfast in Canterbury. Root, who has been building this relationship remotely, is itching to finally meet the man in charge.

One thing Fleming will like is the fast-bowling stock. A new stable is taking shape. Ollie Robinson has come back snarling and effective. Jofra Archer’s hunger for Test cricket clearly survives the Stokes era, a crucial detail for England’s long-term plans. Josh Tongue, hardened by the grind, is starting to look like a genuine weapon rather than a hopeful project.

Gus Atkinson’s numbers dipped after that night at the Rex Rooms and a tweak in role, but context matters. This has been the fastest he has bowled across a season. England’s quiet man is starting to sound like a proper quick.

There are, of course, asterisks all over the statistics. The ball lorded it over the bat: a wicket every 41 deliveries, the lowest strike-rate in England since the 1880s. Pakistan’s batting line-up offered the resistance of wet tissue. When the conditions finally eased – a good Edgbaston surface and a ball that went soft after getting damp the previous evening – England lost their teeth. The bowlers struggled to find a way through. That will nag.

So will Root’s recurring nightmares against the tail. Razaullah’s carnage at Edgbaston was one. Standing in for Stokes at the Oval in June, Root endured another late-order onslaught. Marcus Trescothick, the interim head coach for the Pakistan series and uncertain about his own long-term role, believes Fleming is well suited to help here: a sharp tactical brain, a cool presence, and the most decorated coach in the pressure cooker of the IPL.

Beyond the four frontline quicks, the depth chart is less clear as thoughts drift towards South Africa in December. On form, Olly Stone’s late-summer surge for Nottinghamshire should push him ahead of the younger hopefuls. The more awkward issue is spin. England still lack a proper, bankable frontline spinner. Fleming, who thrived with Daniel Vettori – the archetypal multifunctional cricketer – may crave a similar profile. Liam Patterson-White fits that description as a potential project.

The batting, too, will interest him. England piled up 23 half-centuries across the summer. Only Ben Duckett went on to three figures. It is a pattern Fleming knows intimately: he reached double figures for Test fifties before finally converting one into a hundred. That experience may be gold dust for players like Dan Lawrence, who keeps loading pressure on himself every time he gets set.

Coaches love a settled XI, but Fleming may actually relish the current tension for places. It forces standards up and decisions to be made. When Jacob Bethell returns to fitness, someone will have to make way. Emilio Gay, expected to tour but already hearing murmurs about his ceiling, looks the most vulnerable in the current starting side.

That creates another problem: who actually opens with Duckett? Aside from his excellent 113 at Trent Bridge, he has looked torn between the old Bazball tempo and a more measured approach. England might have to manufacture a partner.

Jordan Cox could be the one nudged up. Given that the No 3 was often walking out by the ninth over against Pakistan, it is hardly a radical change. Cox, like Lawrence, did not nail the defining innings he craved, settling for three half-centuries. Yet he left a mark. There was a presence about him at the crease, a touch of cocksure defiance that caught Root’s eye. “I didn’t really know what to make of him when I first met him,” the captain admitted.

Cox has been open about his ambition: he wants to outdo Root. On paper, that is absurd – the captain sits on more than 14,000 Test runs. On the field, it might be exactly the sort of mentality this post-Stokes England needs.

Because this is the quiet shift now under way. No more leaning on Stokes for the miracle spell, the impossible chase, the aura that bent games to his will. The template is different. Look to Root not as a superhero, but as the understated benchmark of what it takes to live, and survive, in Test cricket.

Fleming walks into that dressing room soon. He will find no shortage of scars, but also something more valuable: a team finally starting to work out who it is without the man who used to define it.