English skipper Joe Root was in no mood of making excuses for a possible lack of ideal preparation for England’s series with New Zealand after a crushing first-Test defeat. England was completely outplayed by the hosts as they were bowled out for 58 in the first innings at Eden Park and, though rain on days two and three aided their cause, they failed to survive on Day 5 and claim a draw as the Black Caps secured victory by an innings and 49 runs.

Having resumed on 132-3, England were bundled out for 320 despite a battling effort with the bat, Ben Stokes (66) and Chris Woakes (52) each scoring half-centuries but proving unable to preserve parity in the two-match series. The second Test in Christchurch marks the final match of a tour of Australia and New Zealand that began with the Ashes in November and has also incorporated a trans-Tasman Twenty20 tri-series and 50-over contests with both countries.

Also read: New Zealand Wins the First Test Against England and Rain

But Root was quick to dismiss talk that the hectic schedule as he said, “I felt we had plenty of time to prepare in Australia and that didn’t go as well as we would have liked. There’s no point looking at excuses around the performance of this game. We simply weren’t good enough first innings with the bat and we were always fighting our way back into the game. Today’s effort was obviously a massive improvement from that first innings and showed a lot of determination and drive and character.”

When asked about the reason that England struggled to tackle the moving ball in the first innings, Root replied: “I think we just didn’t adapt quickly enough to the conditions, that is disappointing. We’re obviously used to the ball moving around, no-one gave themselves the opportunity to get in and build a partnership and that’s so vital in Test cricket. It’s something we need to get right, it’s just not good enough.”

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Now, everyone will be looking forward to the changes England team will be making in the upcoming matches in order to make an improvement in the areas in which they have struggled in such a heavy defeat. Talking about same, Root said that they are moving forward as a side in order to give themselves opportunities to win as much as possible.

Describing his point further Joe said, “The fundamentals of the game don’t really change wherever you are in the world but you need to make big scores of over 400, you need to be able to take 20 wickets, as a group we’re always looking to find ways of getting better and identifying ways in which we can perform more consistently in different circumstances around the world.”