Dorothy

“I don’t believe there is a style, one way of playing Test cricket. I think you’ve got to be adaptable and you’ve got to play the situation and the different tempos of the game. It’s never the same throughout the five days. There are different challenges and you’ve got to adjust to the different ebbs and flows of it throughout that period. When you get your opportunity, you want to put teams under pressure and you want to find ways of driving the game forward, but that might look different in different circumstances.”

Dan Lawrence is locked into the side at No 6, effectively replacing Stokes, with Root talking up the 29-year-old’s off-spin. “Dan’s been an exceptional player for Surrey throughout the whole season. His numbers are amazing. He’s played some brilliant innings and is in great form and I think is a very underrated bowler. So he offers a great amount. Clearly it is a different make-up to the team and a different balance to things, but there’s no reason why that can’t be successful either.”

Now we have reset 2.0 with a new skipper - and an old one, too, with Joe Root retaking the job he previously held from 2017-2022 - and a new permanent coach, although not straight away with Stephen Fleming only taking over in earnest ahead of the South Africa trip this winter, leaving Marcus Trescothick in interim charge against Pakistan from Wednesday, live on Sky Sports.

Root said he has been in “constant contact” with the incoming head coach, Stephen Fleming, who will not take up his position until after the Pakistan series, with Marcus Trescothick filling in for now.

The feeling, either genuine or just because it would be one hell of a story, is that Stokes could return for The Ashes next summer, a series England will be looking to win for the first time since 2015. Stokes says he won't but it would be no surprise if he did.