The China Mail - England captain Root tells players to be 'adults' as he ditches curfew

Root will lead the England at his Headingley home ground on August 19 in their series opener against Pakistan for their first Test since former skipper Ben Stokes retired from international cricket and Brendon McCullum was sacked as red-ball coach.

McCullum, who remains in charge of England's white-ball teams, lost his job after a 2-1 home series loss to New Zealand in June, which followed a disastrous Ashes campaign in Australia.

One of the major controversies at the end of the 'Bazball' era was an incident at a London nightclub in June where Stokes and Gus Atkinson were out past a midnight curfew.

The pair missed the second Test against New Zealand at the Oval, with Root taking temporary charge of the team.

England managing director Rob Key established the curfew, which came about after white-ball captain Harry Brook was fined for an altercation with a bouncer in New Zealand last November.

But Root told Sky Sports cricket podcast: "There's not going to be a curfew. I don't think this needs to be a big deal, to be honest.

"My view on curfews is I don't think they work, and if you want guys to take responsibility on the field they've got to be able to feel they can be grown adults off it and make good strong decisions off it.

"That's for us as a team to manage well, and self-police well, for me and 'Flem' (new red-ball coach Stephen Fleming) to manage well in many ways but ultimately you're grown adults, you know what it takes to play for England, you know what your responsibilities are off the field and we need to make sure we don't find ourselves with any little situations off the field."

Root, 35, holds the record for captaining England in the most Tests (65) and to the most wins (27). He skippered the team from 2017 to 2022.

"We should be known for how we play our cricket and what we do on the field, we should be on the back pages of the newspapers and people reading about that sort of stuff," said Root.

"Be adults, look after yourselves, look after each other, create a good strong culture when you know when the right time is to celebrate and enjoy a win or to have a sensible beer or whatever, but remember you're playing for England."

H.Ng--ThChM