Former England striker Geoffrey Boycott criticized Joe Root’s leadership during England’s defeat to New Zealand in the second Test at The Oval, saying the stand-in captain appeared to have learned “nothing” from his previous spell in charge. Boycott also welcomed the return of Ben Stokes for the third Test, saying England needed him back in charge.Stokes missed the second Test while an investigation was carried out into his and Gus Atkinson’s alleged involvement in a nightclub brawl with a rugby player following England’s first Test win. Root received the captain’s armband ahead of vice-captain Harry Brook. England fielded three debutants in the match and suffered a 253-run defeat, which became Root’s 27th loss as Test captain.The England and Wales Cricket Board later confirmed that Stokes would return for the third Test. The board said Stokes and Atkinson had received written warnings after being found guilty of breaching contractual obligations.Writing in The Telegraph, Boycott said: “Thank heavens Ben Stokes will be back to lead England at Trent Bridge as Joe Root seemed to have learned nothing from his last term as England captain.”He also praised Root’s batting while questioning his captaincy.“Now that Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson have retired from Test cricket, Root is undisputedly the best batsman in the world. What a wonderful thing to say about a great guy who is liked by everyone, including me. But having praised his batting, I am not pleased to say that he has no feel for the captaincy as we saw at the Oval,” he added.Boycott pointed to Root’s handling of Jofro Archer, saying it reminded him of England’s tour of New Zealand in 2019, when Archer was asked to bowl long spells and spend longer spells bowling short shots.“Captainship is a gift and a good leader has a natural idea of who to bowl and what field to set for different batsmen,” Boycott wrote. “You can’t read it in a book, but you can learn it by watching opposition captains around the world. Sometimes it’s intuition or luck, and occasionally when you get a guy who’s happy and good you get an extremely successful leader. Stokes is very good at handling Jofro Archer, while Joe seemed to make the same mistakes at the Oval as he did when he captained England in New Zealand in 2019,” he added.Boycott was particularly critical of Archer’s workload late on opening day.“It was crazy that Joe asked him to bowl an 8-over spell at the end of the first day at the Oval with a number of short balls aimed at New Zealand batsman Glenn Phillips and the tail-enders,” Boycott wrote.
