The first nine words from Joe Root summed up the mood perfectly after 48 hours of negative headlines following yet another off-field controversy involving an England player.
“If I’m being brutally honest, I’m really hacked off,” was the Test captain’s opener to an eagerly-anticipated press conference at Lord’s that was brought forward in response to Brydon Carse’s Saturday night out in Derby, which ended with him being led away in handcuffs by police outside a nightclub at 4am.
The events outside Molly Malone’s Irish Tavern, which took place barely 24 hours after Root opened his second spell as England captain with an innings win against Pakistan at Headingley, are now the subject of investigations by both the England & Wales Cricket Board and the Cricket Regulator.
“I’m really disappointed that, after last week’s performance, we’re sat here and we’re talking about something that is not related to it at all,” Root continued. “It’s not the isolated incident itself, it’s the fact we continuously keep making stupid mistakes away from the game and it’s detracting from what we are doing on the field.”
Carse was a big part of England’s Ashes tour in the winter (Photo: Getty)
