LEGACY OF CAPTAIN JOE IS ON THE LINE!

JAMES WALLACE says the next year and a half will decide how history judges Joe Root’s captaincy of England

- JAMES WALLACE

This week was a stark reminder that there are lies, damn lies and… the President. The sight of Donald Trump, clutching scraps of paper inked with graphs and charts and declaring to increasingly incredulous interviewer Jonathan Swann that America are lower than “the world” when it comes to coronavirus death rates is enough to convince anyone that numbers can be fudged any which way one likes.

Trump’s interview was more surreal than even his normal schtick, you half expected Ali G to appear and start ‘Booyakasha-ing’ with Boutros Boutros-Ghali at any moment. But then Trumpparps up with a line that lingers in your head for all the wrong reasons;

“They are dying. That’s true. And it is what it is.” You win some, you lose some.”

Cricket provides solace and distraction in trying times so it’s nice to segue from the leader of the free world and his buttery-brain to a position almost as important; the leader of the England men’s cricket team.

Watching Joe Root hoist the Wisden Trophy (the last captain to do so) above his lockdown locks in the Old Trafford drizzle following his side’s 2-1 victory over West Indies I couldn’t help see it as a first step along ‘Legacy Highway’, ‘The road to Fruition’, Root 66. Honk! HOONNKK! The coming months will define him not just as captain but as a player too.

Root’s side often succumb in the first Test of a series. This is a problem. Granting the opposition a head-start in a five, three and especially two-match series is not really a good business model. Rob Smyth wrote in