{"id":676151,"date":"2026-01-05T20:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/676151\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:22:14","slug":"the-ashes-2025-26-joe-root-defends-jamie-smith-after-ugly-dismissal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/676151\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes 2025-26: Joe Root defends Jamie Smith after ugly dismissal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Root backed team-mate Jamie Smith after the England wicketkeeper was criticised for his dismissal on day two of the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney.<\/b><\/p>\n

With lunch looming, Smith attempted to flog a tame bouncer from part-timer Marnus Labuschagne and was caught for 46.<\/p>\n

BBC cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew called it<\/a> “one of the worst” dismissals he has seen.<\/p>\n

To many it epitomised England’s aggressive approach, one often deemed reckless, but batter Root said “you can’t win games just surviving”.<\/p>\n

“It’s very easy to over-analyse and look too much at certain dismissals,” said Root, who scored a sublime 160 on day two.<\/p>\n

“There is method behind what we’re trying to do. <\/p>\n

“We’re trying to move the game forward all the time and when it doesn’t come off, it can look a certain way. But as a batter your job is not to survive, it’s to score runs. You can’t win games just surviving.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you just make a mistake and you have to learn from it. That’s the art of the game: it’s not being too hard on yourself, not being too soft on yourself, it’s being real and understanding what you need to do to get the best out of yourself.<\/p>\n

“They are clearly very good players and I back them 100%.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Root backed team-mate Jamie Smith after the England wicketkeeper was criticised for his dismissal on day two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-676151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115844359398064087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}