How many times have England turned to Joe Root to rescue them from trouble? You can picture it instantly: two wickets down, barely a run on the board, Root emerging from the pavilion, loosening up at the boundary rope before jogging purposefully to the crease.
Now the crisis is of a very different kind. England have issued an SOS to their greatest Test batter to steady a side unsettled by events off the field.
The timing is striking. On the same day Harry Brook replaced his fellow Yorkshireman at the top of the Test batting rankings, England did not ask their vice-captain to step in as interim skipper. Instead, they turned back to Root, the former captain and the team’s most trusted constant.
The investigation into Ben Stokes’ actions in the early hours of Monday morning has created an unusually awkward scenario. Had Stokes simply been unavailable because of injury for next week’s second Test against New Zealand at The Oval, Brook would probably have taken charge.
Brook, despite his off-field misdemeanours last winter, retained the limited-overs captaincy and led England to the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup. He is also due to captain the side in next month’s white-ball series against India.
But asking him to replace a captain sidelined by an alleged nightclub incident would have invited uncomfortable comparisons with Brook’s own altercation outside a Wellington nightclub eight months ago. The optics would have been impossible to ignore.
So England have reached for the emergency option they know best: Root, dependable as ever, asked once more to restore order when the situation has become messy.
