It will make a stark contrast. The transition of the England Test captaincy from Alastair Cook to Joe Root was done at a leisurely, gentlemanly, old-fashioned pace, as if by an exchange of handwritten letters, starting before Christmas and completed this week. Root, backed by Ben Stokes, is going to captain more at the speed of Snapchat.
There is a lot to be said for due process, but not in this case. Before Christmas, before the end of the Mumbai Test, Cook had manifestly stomached enough, and he should have resigned once the series in India was lost, instead of soldiering on with what could be argued was a misplaced sense of duty. Then there were only two possible candidates to succeed him for the fifth and final Test: either Root, or else call Mike Brearley out of retirement, and he is in his seventies.
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Joe Root named as English cricket captain.
26 year old batsman Joe Root has been announced as Captain for the English cricket team.
So it has turned out to be something of a hospital pass: Root will have only four months, from the time of his captaincy debut in July, to get his team together for the assignment by which all concerned are judged, the Ashes.
No official England captain in this century has been given such a short build-up. It could, and should, have been 11 months of preparation. England would have been under the pump in Chennai whoever captained them, such was the disparity between their spinners and India's, but with a little more purposefulness England could have lasted 40 minutes longer and sneaked a draw, launching a new Root era which - instead - has yet to start.
The tempo of Root's captaincy, however, will be quickly apparent. It took him less than two minutes to make his mark when Cook left the field in Chennai.
With patient resignation - his appetite for captaincy gone - Cook drifted down to short fine leg, even when the left-arm spinner Liam Dawson on his Test debut needed a bit of counsel, as Karun Nair piled up 300 and India 700. A team assume the characteristics of the captain; and in the second innings of the Mumbai and Chennai Tests England batted resignedly, and collapsed.
As soon as Root took over, he stood at short extra cover and engaged with his bowler during an over, instead of waiting until the end. Root at least tried to pump up the tyres of Adil Rashid, who had been rolling up leg-breaks that were smashed over deep midwicket and who kept shrugging his shoulders.
As an on-field captain Cook was at his best in a tight situation when the right strategy was to keep a senior seamer going, like James Anderson against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2013 or Stuart Broad in Chittagong last autumn.
![Complementary pairing: England's Ben Stokes, left, and Joe Root.](/web/20170221055351im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/c/6/v/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.guc5mc.png/1487026025614.jpg)
Outwardly calm, inwardly resolute. But when imagination was required - something more than an unusual field placing - it was not always forthcoming. Keaton Jennings, a Collingwood-ish medium-pacer, nearly took a wicket with his first ball in Chennai, but was never tried in Mumbai while India ran up 600. Root, by contrast, will not die wondering.
Like his eminent contemporary captains - Steve Smith, of Australia, Virat Kohli, of India, and Kane Williamson, of New Zealand - Root is of a different generation to Cook, though only six years younger, and a very different outlook. Try anything: that has been Root's attitude, ever since he put his hand up to bowl the first over for Yorkshire in T20 matches.
He can be too hasty, too impatient. His main weakness so far has been his failure to turn his individual talent into team dominance, and his fifties into centuries: having reached 50 all of 38 times in Tests, he has gone on to three figures on only 11 occasions.
The high-risk shot has become too appealing as the landmark has approached. But fatherhood has calmed many a batsman down, and Root can now reposition himself at No.4, his favoured position, rather than straining to assert himself at three.
The formal appointment of Stokes will be critical in enabling Root to impose his style. Cook would not confront Anderson and Broad if the ball was not swinging and they decided to hang the ball outside off stump, ready to fight another day.
Stokes, as a bowler, has shown that he will do anything to take a wicket; as vice-captain he will make sure the strategy agreed by Root and head coach Trevor Bayliss is enforced.
The pressures on Root will be enormous in the coming months, as he does the one-on-one interviews with his players that Michael Vaughan has recommended; as he copes with the huge increase in media interest; as he talks with all the coaches; as he participates in England's campaign to win their first one-day global tournament, starting next week when the party heads to the West Indies.
All before his first match in charge against South Africa at Lord's in July.
But a saving grace is that he may not have to perform in all formats. A brilliant batsman, he was a less than heroic hitter in the three T20 internationals against India, and would not have earned a maharajah's ransom if he had entered his name in the Indian Premier League auction.
But as a batsman in the Champions Trophy, and one of England's youngest captains, with a team that is full of unrealised talent, his plate is already overflowing.
The Telegraph, London
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