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Joe Root

Bazball way

Importantly, though, it was only England's third defeat of the Bazball regime, which meant that you couldn’t really dip your pain in acid and write disdainfully of Brendon McCullum, the coach who preaches hyper-aggressive Test cricket or Ben Stokes, the captain who made himself conspicuous with his rash first-day declaration.

Joe Root returns to bat at No 4 for England in Tests, confirms Ben Stokes

Stokes plans to bat himself at six and is hoping that prospective players that harbour aspirations of batting in England's recently frail top and middle-order will give him plenty to ponder by scoring a bulk of runs at the county level ahead of the first Test of the summer against the Kiwis at Lord's on June 2.