Joe Root lasted 18 balls in Perth. Here’s why he skipped PM’s XI match to save his Ashes campaign

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England’s best batsman Joe Root has outlined why he ignored the chance to play a warm-up game against the pink ball in favour of more net sessions, ahead of a Gabba Test that will determine whether the tourists mount a serious Ashes bid or consign Bazball to the dustbin of history.

With scores of zero and eight in Perth, 34-year-old Root was in the middle for just 18 balls across two innings, defeated by Mitchell Starc on both occasions.

Nevertheless, he joined the rest of England’s top six in declining to go to chilly Canberra for the Prime Minister’s XI match under lights, instead preferring two extra days of training in Brisbane’s heat and humidity.

“This is the best way to prepare personally,” Root said following England’s first Gabba session, after training at Allan Border Field on Saturday. “It’s very different in terms of humidity and heat, and the surface is going to be very different.

“The fact we’re all together and we can ready ourselves as a group is also very important too. Time in the middle is one thing, but as an experienced player, I feel like I know what I need to get the best out of myself.

“This is a very different team to previous Ashes teams I’ve played in out here. One thing we’ve done previously is respond really well to bad weeks of cricket. When we’ve made mistakes we’ve come back out and put really good performances in. That’s something I expect us to do this time around.”

Root’s self-assessment of his two brief innings in Perth was perhaps a little rosier than it might have been four years ago, when he became relentlessly self-critical amid an awful tour for an England side beset by biosecurity issues and an outbreak of COVID-19 within the squad.

“I was pretty disappointed in terms of numbers,” he said. “First innings I thought it was a good ball, one of those things you can get early on, and you’ve just got to try to find a way to get through that little phase. It’s tricky at the start.

“Second innings I thought my tempo was really good. One mistake, you play and miss at that or it goes between the keeper and stumps for four, you never think of it again. So it’s having a bit of realism. Yes there are things I might’ve done differently if I get the opportunity again, but also it’s not the end of the world.”

Asked if England’s batsmen needed to use a few more gears in Brisbane, balancing attack and defence, Root resorted to a favoured word for captains and caches down the years: execution.

“I think we just need to execute a lot better and understand how we’re going to score our runs on the given surfaces,” Root said. “We do that individually well, and we do that for long periods of time, that’s the art of batting.

“It’s individually understanding what that looks like in the lead-up to this game, understanding the conditions, understanding the pink ball, the threat the Australian bowlers might pose to you.

“Making sure you’re as ready as you possibly can be, and that you’ve got all the tools you need to survive and be successful and go through all those different moments in games that are going to serve you well.”

While Root pointed out that pink-ball Tests can turn on a dime due to the way conditions change when the floodlights come on – something that will be more prevalent in Brisbane given an earlier sunset than Adelaide – he asserted that England were still much better equipped to compete than previous touring sides.

“We’ve got different tools we didn’t have last time round,” he said.

“We’ve got a more settled team than last time as well. We might’ve lost a bit of experience in terms of bowling, but we’ve got different attributes that suit these conditions really well.

“There’s a good inner belief in what we’re trying to do and how we want to play our cricket, and that’s got to stay right at the front of what we do going into this week.

“I know if I get time out there and make good decisions for long periods of time I’m going to be successful and build those innings to set up games for us to win.”

While unsure of when he would be ready to resume, Root expected that fast man Mark Wood would figure again at some point in the series.

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