England were better side for most of first Test, says Joe Root

England skipper Joe Root has dismissed Jonny Bairstow’s headbutt on Cameron Bancroft as ‘boyish behaviour’.

England captain Joe Root (right) has come to the defence of under-fire wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow. Picture: AAP

England outplayed Australia for three days of the Gabba Test, visiting captain Joe Root believes, and the secret of clawing their way back into the Ashes series is simply not to make a big deal of something that isn’t there.

That applies as much to their batting woes as to the mini-crisis that has engulfed Jonny Bairstow over his habit of introducing himself to people on this tour with a Liverpool, or in his case, Yorkshire kiss. But when all the discussion of headbutts had exhausted itself, Root remained confident his side could recover from its 10-wicket defeat in Brisbane to rebound in the Adelaide Test starting on Saturday.

“I think it was just a bit of joshing around, boyish behaviour,” said Root, referring to the Bairstow incident which, curiously enough, may have been sufficient to distract the English press and public from the fact that, in the end, his side was well-beaten at the Gabba.

“I think the most important thing is we stay strong and tight as a group of players and as a squad and that we continue to keep doing the hard work we have done throughout the whole trip. For three days, we’ve played some excellent cricket and unfortunately when we got into good positions we didn’t quite capitalise on that.

“If we had, then it would be a different scoreboard right now. There are things we need to address and learn from with this game. But for three days, the majority of the time we outplayed Australia.”

England had six batsmen score 40 or better at the Gabba, Mark Stoneman (53), James Vince (83) and Dawid Malan (56) in the first innings and Root (51), Moeen Ali (40) and Bairstow (42) in the second, but they had no-one push on as Steve Smith did with his masterful, unbeaten knock of 141. And that, Root said, made all the difference.

“In hindsight when you get to 4-250, you want to go on and make a score of over 400. And that was probably the difference in their innings and ours, one guy went on and made a big hundred. As well, when you have them seven down, you’d like to think you’d be able to close that out a little bit quicker and get a lead of 80 or 60, something like that. (It would be) a very different game from then on.”

Certainly England will be hoping that former skipper Alastair Cook, plays more up to his form and reputation in Adelaide than he did in Brisbane when he looked, curiously both uncomfortable and unlucky.

He nicked off in the first innings, having faced just 10 balls, and then in the second unluckily picked out Mitchell Starc on the boundary and was out for seven. Still, what was he doing playing the hook shot so early in his innings on what was, right from the start, a two-paced wicket?

But with 11,638 runs under his belt in Tests and an average of 46, there is no likelihood that England’s opening partnership, Cook and Mark Stoneman, is going to change any time soon. Others, however, do not have the benefit of seniority.

Jake Ball had a fairly miserable Test in Brisbane, to add to the three Tests he has played previously against Pakistan and India. He may have succeeded in getting rid of one of Australia’s most dangerous batsmen, Dave Warner, in the first innings but he now has only three wickets in total for an average of 107, while his batting is giving him no succour at all, just 67 runs at 8.38.

There’s little hope of Ben Stokes being allowed to join the touring party in Australia — and perhaps even less now that the team is about to have the riot act read to them by coach Trevor Bayliss over the Bairstow incident — but how England are missing what he delivers: 2429 runs at 37.72 and 95 wickets at 33.94.