Tag Test match cricket

Captain Joe Root ‘getting better all the time’, says Trevor Bayliss

It was very much in keeping with his slightly incurious nature that Trevor Bayliss, in his final press conference as England head coach, had no idea the man who hired him four years ago had been knighted in the previous evening’s honors list. Andrew Strauss, now Sir Andrew Strauss, recruited Bayliss in 2015 off the back of a trophy-laden record in limited-overs cricket but also because of his reputation as an old-school Aussie who would relax the players after the more intense regimes of Andy Flower and Peter Moores. The mission, Bayliss was told, was to help a promising generation of England players win their first men’s World Cup and it was accomplished on 14 July this summer when Eoin Morgan lifted the trophy at Lord’s after the gut-wrenching super-over drama of that final against New Zealand. Two months on, Bayliss heads into his last Test as head coach and while his place in English cricket history is secured by that glittering piece of ICC-branded silverware, that the Ashes urn figuratively remains in Australian hands leaves a slight sense of disappointment. It is one he shares too. “I’m a traditionalist,” replied Bayliss, when asked about…

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