England captain Joe Root ‘can’t believe’ Michael Vaughan’s rant after South Africa shocker

Joe Root was stunned by former England captain Michael Vaughan’s assertion that his side had failed to respect Test cricket during their thumping 340-run defeat by South Africa at Trent Bridge. Ashes-winning skipper Vaughan, now a commentator with BBC Radio’s Test Match Special, made his stinging comments as England lost seven first-innings wickets for 62 runs to be bowled out in little more than 50 overs for 205 in reply to the Proteas’ 335.

Root’s 78 was the only fifty in a meagre total that left England well behind in the game. “The England batting has been appalling,” said Vaughan, who played alongside Root’s father Matt at the Sheffield Collegiate Club in Yorkshire and has been a friend of the family since Joe was a boy.

“Maybe it’s a lack of respect about what the game is,” said Vaughan, one of the leading Test batsmen of his era. “They look like they are playing a Twenty20 game. They have this approach of attack, attack, attack. There is no thought or feeling of seeing off a bowler or wearing a team down.”

England’s second innings was even worse, with Root’s men bowled out for just 133 in pursuit of a world-record target of 474 …read more