Newly appointed England Test captain Joe Root has removed the curfew imposed on the team and has instead called on his teammates to behave like ‘grown adults’. The curfew rule brought in after drinking related incidents during tour of New Zealand and Australia will not be in force beginning the series against Pakistan starting later this month.
The curfew that has been put in place has been under the spotlight and during the recent series against New Zealand, former captain Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson ended up breaking it. It led to a series of off-field shake-ups with Stokes missing the second Test before returning to captain the third Test during which he announced his international retirement.
In the weeks that followed Brendon McCullum was removed as the head coach of the Test team with Stephen Fleming coming in as his replacement. With Fleming coming on board, England handed over the Test team captaincy to Root, who will have his second stint as skipper.
And with the series against Pakistan coming up Root told Sky Sports: “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 that I don’t think they work and if you want guys to take responsibility on the field, they’ve got to feel like they can be grown adults off it and make good, strong decisions off it,” added Root.