England have much to be positive about despite losing the final Test of their three-match series against Sri Lanka. (Report | Ball-by-ball commentary | More Cricket News)
England were firmly second best as they lost by eight wickets at The Oval in the third Test, with Sri Lanka picking up just their fourth win in the longest format on English soil
England have much to be positive about despite losing the final Test of their three-match series against Sri Lanka. (Report | Ball-by-ball commentary | More Cricket News)
That is the view of Joe Root, who was named England's Player of the Series.
England were firmly second best as they lost by eight wickets at The Oval in the third Test, with Sri Lanka picking up just their fourth win in the longest format on English soil.
Yet after winning the first two Tests, and their three matches against West Indies earlier in the summer, England have plenty to be happy with, so says Root, who used a musical comparison to emphasise his point.
"Not so much this week, but it has been a good summer," Root told BBC Sport.
"We have played some really good cricket along the way. We have had new faces come into the team and some really exciting prospects off the back of that. We are constantly learning and evolving as a group, and it is nice to contribute to that.
"I don't think we played our best cricket this week and that is going to happen from time to time. Coldplay can't be number one every week.
"My point being is we are always trying to move the game forward. We wanted to keep our catchers in and as batters want to find ways of putting the opposition under pressure.
"We are not always going to get it right all of the time. For 90% of the summer we have. We have shown what a good team we can be when we play in that matter.
"It is important we are authentic to what we are as a team and what brings out the best in our individual players."
Root plundered 375 runs across six innings in the series, including two hundreds in the second Test.
However, only scoring 25 in the third Test means he is 14 runs short of 1,000 for 2024.
He will likely get the chance to surpass that milestone, and equal Alastair Cook as the only other English player to score 1,000+ runs in five calendar years, when England tour Pakistan in October.
"You can laud it when it comes off," Root continued on England's approach. "When it doesn't always come off it might not look like traditional dismissals, but [Pathum] Nissanka was hitting over mid-on and mid-off last night.
"When you are 127 not out you can look back and say what a brilliant innings it was. He was brave enough to take the challenge on and that is what we pride ourselves on as well - how can you knock bowlers off a length, how can you make it difficult for them to build pressure on you.
"Some of our guys have a different method to how I would do it and that is what makes us such a good team when we are at our best, because we compliment each other really well and find a different way of getting teams to bowl away from where the danger is.
"Over the last couple of years, that is what has made us have the success we have had."
England's focus now switches to an ODI series against Australia, with bowler Gus Atkinson having been rested after sustaining an injury at The Oval.