England captain Joe Root has put his focus on winning the Ashes in Australia after England levelled the series, saying he was “desperate” to take the team forward. England won the fifth and final Test by 135 runs and tie the series by 2-2, ending their historic World Cup-winning season on a high note. With this, the series finished in a draw for the very first time since 1972, although Australia retained the Ashes urn. He praised Rory Burns for his contributions at the top order and Jofra Archer, the vital cog who made his Test debut last month only.

“Throughout the whole series we’ve shown a lot of character,” said Root. “At times we’ve been out-skilled… but we’ve always fought very hard and that’s a very pleasing thing,” he said. “Hopefully that will be a massive stepping stone and starting point for us to really kick on as a team now.”

The next Ashes will take place in Australia in 2021-22.

“I’m desperate to take this team forward,” said Joe Root. “I’m in a very privileged position to be captain of the Test team and I’ll do everything I can to get us very well prepared for going down there and hopefully doing something very special.”

Read here: Ravi Shastri, Shikhar Dhawan Discuss Cricket Over “Coffee”

Root further said the performance in the fifth Test was an example of how he wanted his team to play in the Ashes but he thought there was still room for improvement.

“You look at this week in particular,” he said. “It looks as like we just started to really get to grips with Test cricket after a very long period of one-day cricket. We’ve got a period now and an opportunity in the next two-and-a-half years to really push and do everything we can to prepare extremely well for that tour of Australia so that’s going to be a huge focus for me and I like to hope for English cricket.”