England’s men start their post-Bazball future next week with a three-Test series against Pakistan. Cricket correspondent Ali Martin is online now to answer your questions about this new era for the team – and anything else you’d like to discuss
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TotesMcGotes asks: Would England be wise to take this opportunity - that of Root being captain presumably until the ODI World Cup is past and then Brook takes over - to move Brook to 4 and put Root at 5? Otherwise there is a good chance that Brook moves to 4 around the same time as he takes on the captaincy.
Why not incentivise Brook to develop the maturity (that is lacking at times) in his game now with the added responsibility, then the captaincy would follow neatly. It also takes a bit of pressure off Root who hopefully would not be coming in to bat within 30-60mins of captaining in the field so often.
As before, I would have looked to achieve this by giving Harry Brook the captaincy straight away. It’s not the worst idea now they haven’t, although with so much of the team in flux - and Root’s preference being No4 - I can see why they’ve chosen to stick with the existing order for now.
It is certainly set in stone in terms of the current broadcast deal, which runs to the end of 2028 (obviously the WTC final tops this up to seven every couple of years, plus the all-too-few women’s Test matches). As for the value of each format/competition, the all-in nature of the TV deal means this is all slightly opaque. What I do know is that when the world stopped in 2020, it was Test cricket that all parties were most desperate to stage and we were told each match was worth £20m in TV money (a figure which rises significantly with crowds, corporate, sponsorship etc). Outside of World Cups, you do see interest waning in white-ball bilaterals a touch. I hope the next deal is split, so we can get a stronger sense of the breakdown. Right now I suspect Test cricket- the format most people pay their Sky subs to watch – is subsidising The Hundred…
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