Joe Root: Ashley Giles says England reclaiming Ashes in Australia is captain's 'holy grail'
Last updated on .From the section Cricket

England Test captain Joe Root has been backed to "lead and win in Australia" by director of men's cricket Ashley Giles as they try to reclaim the Ashes.
Australia left England with the urn for the first time since 2001 this summer, while the 28-year-old also presided over a 4-0 loss down under in 2017-18.
Root has said he and new coach Chris Silverwood are "aligned" on a two-year plan to win back the Ashes in 2020-21.
"That's the 'holy grail' for him," said Giles.
Speaking to the BBC's Test Match Special, Giles added: "Going to Australia and winning is the big prize, and we have enough time to plan for that.
"We have talked about him leading and winning in Australia. We've not said: 'Maybe if you get there.' We plan for him to be our captain.
"None of us know what is around the corner. Things can change quickly, but in our planning when we sat down [before the 2019 Ashes series], we were looking to Australia.
"This is a really exciting period, this new relationship with Chris Silverwood. With these two, we've talked about them finding a DNA for Test cricket.
"What do they want their Test team to look like? I don't think we've seen that for a couple of years now."
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ECB's overriding objective should be to win back all the respect they have lost as a Test team. They've sacrificed the red-ball game on the immoral altar of white-ball money. But their duty is not specifically to the white ball game, but the whole game, and red-ball cricket is essential to that.
This team has been saved by the bowling unit and good all-rounder performances for too long.
'investigative reporting of the kind that made the BBC famous' - this is long gone! BBC online (especially BBC Sport) is no better than a channel for shameless promotion of its own media content and that of its partners. It cares only about engagement, clicks and showing its partners how on-side it is; journalism, integrity, and credibility has been long-since abandoned.
I think we've covered this before.
The counties' current dependency on ECB money (gained by selling its soul to the white-ball devil) is purely down to ECB malfeasance (bullying/hegemony) The counties & 1st-class game are not inherently unviable, it's just that ECB made them so by deliberately screwing the county calendar.
Is this, now, a Damascene conversion?
That's not very encouraging.