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Men's Cricket Root begs fans to stick with England during this tough time

JOE ROOT was brutally honest today when he said that his England team is continuing to underperform but has urged supporters to “keep the faith” nonetheless.

Under Root’s captaincy, England took their alarming losing sequence to six defeats in eight Tests as they succumbed limply by nine wickets to Pakistan in the first match of the home summer.

The Yorkshireman was not shying away from evident problems after England were dispatched early on day four at Lord’s — where they were bowled out for 184 after he chose to bat and then could set Pakistan only 64 to win after mustering 242 at their second attempt.

It was the continuation of a miserable theme, thoroughly established through last winter’s 4-0 Ashes trouncing and 1-0 setback in New Zealand — and all the more concerning that it has followed them home.

“We know we’re underperforming … we’ve not performed to anywhere we need to,” said Root, whose hosts must win at Headingley in the second Test to avoid series defeat.

“It’s very difficult to take as a talented group of players … [but] we fully believe we can get to where we want to get to.”

Asked for his message to those who follow England in the hope of improvement, Root added: “Keep the faith, keep trusting, keep believing.

“We’ve got to … just find a way.”

He insists, despite obvious failings in the middle, England are doing everything right in practice.

“We worked a lot harder — the intensity in practice was definitely better,” he said.

“That’s going to make us a better team but it doesn’t happen overnight.

“We put in some really hard work and we’ve got to continue to do that and keep believing that will get us to where we want to get to.

“We have looked at things and had a really good chat about how we wanted to approach this summer — and I think we went about things the right way.

“We’ve got to give it time to work.”

It is becoming a grim patience test, however.

“Putting that practice into the game was what was really disappointing this week — because it didn’t happen,” said Root.

“We’ve been outplayed across all three departments — and in particular, it was disappointing with the bat first up. It really hurt us not getting the score we needed.

“We were well below par and always chasing the game really, trying to find a way back in.”

He and coach Trevor Bayliss do not appear tempted to change the team significantly for the second Test at Headingley on Friday — although in an interview with Sky Sports, the latter’s frustration was clear.

Root said: “It’s easy to look at [this result] and say: ‘Right, we need to make drastic changes.’

“But it’s not just one or two guys — we were collectively all under par this week. We have to take that on the chin, learn the lessons very quickly and make sure we respond well.

“It would be very easy to go into next week feeling sorry for ourselves and think there’s no way forward for us — but absolutely there is.”

Bayliss added that this “was nowhere near good enough for Test level … to be bowled out for 180 and 240 is simply not good enough.

“They are working hard on it but we keep making the same mistakes.

“The batters have to have a good, hard, long look at themselves.”

Pakistan, by contrast, could scarcely be faulted.

Their captain Sarfraz Ahmed believes victory over Ireland the previous week served as ideal preparation.

“If you see Malahide and here, we improved a lot,” he said.

“It was a perfect Test match, before the big series.”

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