The China Mail - Brook urges England to follow ever-green Root's example

Root followed his unbeaten 76 in England's defeat in the first ODI with a superbly-paced 99 not out as they won in Cardiff on Thursday to level the three-match series ahead of Sunday's finale at Lord's.

England's victory in Cardiff followed a run of 16 defeats in their previous 20 ODIs.

That dismal sequence has raised questions about how competitive a team seemingly wedded to aggressive batting will be at next year's 50-over World Cup in southern Africa.

The 35-year-old Root -- who has scored 7,752 runs in 191 ODIs with 20 hundreds -- said he sympathised with younger players coming into the England side as changes to the domestic schedule meant they do not have "the wealth of experience and understanding of 50-over cricket".

But Brook, a Yorkshire team-mate of Root insisted even the very best players are always looking to improve.

"I personally think you're always learning," Brook told reporters at Lord's on Saturday.

"He (Root) has played nearly 200 ODIs, he's still trying to learn, he's still trying to get better as a player and he's England's greatest-ever batter."

When it was suggested to Brook that England had become over-reliant on Root, he said: "Root has been such a good player for so many years and it's awesome to have him on the side.

"We probably have depended on him quite a little bit in recent times in ODI cricket and Test cricket.

"Hopefully, the boys can learn from what he's doing, myself included, and realise how easy he's making batting look, to be able to just rotate the strike.

"If we can add a little bit of Joe Root into our batting as a collective team, then we'll definitely be in some strong positions."

England are searching for a new Test coach. Brendon McCullum, who is still in charge of their white-ball teams, was sacked from the role after a recent 2-1 series loss against New Zealand.

That reverse meant England had lost seven of their last nine Tests.

Asked what England needed from their new Test coach, Brook said: "That's a good question. That's up for the coach to decide.

"We want to put ourselves in strong positions as much as we possibly can to be able to dominate the game.

"Test cricket is a long game, five days, and we could probably be slightly more consistent than we have been over the last couple of years."

K.Lam--ThChM