Team-England

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England Test captain Joe Root has opposed England cricket board's (ECB) controversial rotation policy and said that the policy should be ditched during the England vs India five-match Test series from August.

ECB had adopted the policy to look after their players' mental health due to the long isolation periods spent in bio-secure bubbles over the COVID-19 safety protocols. As a result, they did not travel to India with their full strength squad earlier this year and lost the series 1-2. They even got out of the WTC final race due to this defeat.

We are going to have our best team available: Root

The new cycle of the World Test Championship (WTC) will begin with the five-Test series between India and England from August 4 in Nottingham. Joe Root believes that the time has come to ditch the rotation policy as he wants his side to compete for the WTC title.

“We are coming into a period of time now where rest and rotation is put behind us,” Root said.

“Hopefully, if everyone is fit, we are going to have our best team available for what is to follow. That’s really exciting and something I’m very much looking forward to.”

Earlier this year, key players Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood did not compete in the first two Tests against India but took field in the fourth Test. While first-choice wicket-keeper Jos Buttler also returned home after the series-opener. Further, senior players like Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and Moeen Ali, were all granted rest periods in the first half of 2021.

Root hoped that it won’t be same story this time around.

“We have ten very hard Test matches against two brilliant opposition coming up but it is a great opportunity for us to play some strong cricket and if everyone is fit and available we will have a good team ourselves.”

“I’d like to think that, over the next five Test matches, we’ll be trying to play our strongest side or have our strongest squad available for those games. This is, I suppose, what you do it for: to ready yourself for this lead-in and for in particular that Ashes. To make sure everyone’s peaking for that, and these big games," Root was quoted as saying.