Joe Root regrets 'mic-drop' celebration as he insists Ben Stokes will play in first Test despite court case

Stoke's court case for affray starts the day after the first Test at Edgbaston

Root celebrated his century on Tuesday with a 'mic-drop' celebration (Getty Images)

It was meant as a cheeky gesture of defiance to celebrate a stunning return to form and a significant one-day series win for England. Yet it is highly unlikely India will take Joe Root’s Headingley ‘mic drop’ celebration in that spirit.

Instead, Virat Kohli and his players will no doubt use what could be seen as provocation by Root as added motivation to win the five-Test series against England that starts at Edgbaston the week after next.

Root’s intentions were not disrespectful when he ‘mic-dropped’ his bat to the floor in a style popularised by rappers and comedians who believe they have offered a statement so emphatic it cannot be followed. He had after all just hit the four that secured an England-record 13th ODI hundred on his home ground and a brilliant come-from-behind series win for his team. All that after a summer where before his century at Lord’s last Saturday he had not even scored a fifty.

(Action Images via Reuters (Action Images via Reuters)

However, Kohli, India’s captain and a man who is used to getting his own way, no doubt had his significant ego pricked and will be desperate to redress the balance in a Test series that could be decided on whether he outperforms Root or not.

As England’s Test captain, Root has more to lose than anyone if a fired-up India extend his team’s run without a series win to four by the end of the summer. It’s no surprise then that Root, fresh from being told by his one-day captain Eoin Morgan he had “made a fool of himself”, now cringes at the very mention of the gesture.

“It was something that I immediately regretted,” he admitted. “I’ve not heard the end of it, it was literally the most embarrassing thing I’ve done on a cricket field. I don’t think it will be the last I hear of it from the group – they’ve been hammering me.

“You’d think if you were going to do a celebration like that, you’d have smacked it 30 yards out of the ground. It was just an absolute car crash.”

England’s prospects in the forthcoming Test series will not be helped by the absence of Ben Stokes for the second match at Lord’s, which is taking place at the same time as the talismanic all-rounder is tried on a charge of affray in Bristol.

Given the trial actually starts just one day after the scheduled fifth day of the first Test, it would be understandable if England feared Stokes would be too distracted to perform at Edgbaston and decided to leave him out. Root, though, indicated Stokes will, fitness permitting, definitely start the series in Birmingham.

Ben Stokes is expected to play (Getty Images)

“No, we are going to pick our best team and make sure we go into that series with the strongest squad,” he said. “If Ben’s fit to play, he’ll be up for selection. He loves playing cricket, he loves being out there, you can see when he’s on a cricket field he’s fully engaged with what’s going on. He wants the ball all the time. He wants to be involved in what’s happening and I’m sure that will be exactly the same throughout that game.”

Root had gone eight innings without a half-century before his back-to-back ODI hundreds against India and he says: “It’s been a weird one really. I’ve not felt like I’ve been playing poorly or there’s been any sort of glaring mistakes in my game.

“But ultimately, I had a think about how I wanted to go about things and I just went back to what has held me in really good stead for such a long time - trying to keep focusing on playing the situation, letting the guys bat around me and giving them the freedom to go and play. Over the last two games, obviously it worked nicely.”

As for breaking Marcus Trescothick’s England record of 12 ODI hundreds, Root says: “It’s not a big thing, I don’t think. It’s obviously nice but I feel I’ve got a lot more to give this ODI team for a long time so, hopefully, there’s quite a few more [hundreds] left. We’ll see how we go in the next couple of years.”

England’s success in the one-day series, coming so soon after they had lost 2-1 to India in the T20s, should hopefully set a positive tone for them ahead of the Tests. Yet, asked if he felt one-day success would have a psychological impact on the rest of the summer, Root cited his team’s series-levelling win in their last Test against Pakistan at Headingley as more significant.

He said: “Maybe slightly [there will be a psychological edge] for the guys that have been involved in the ODIs but it’s a completely different format and I think more importantly take all the good stuff we did in that last Test here against Pakistan and try to replicate as much of that as possible.

“The way we approached it as a group, the mindset and attitude left us a good benchmark. That’s what I am going to put to the guys: how can we take that forward now?”