England's year a success despite missing out on Ashes, says Root

Captain Joe Root said England's year could still be judged a success even if they fail to level the Ashes series against Australia by winning the final Test at the Oval.

The home side go into Thursday's fifth and final match 2-1 down, meaning they cannot place the urn in their trophy cabinet alongside the one-day World Cup, which they won for the first time in July.

But the skipper said his players were still focused on denying Australia their first series win in England since 2001 in the game starting on Thursday.

"It's bitterly disappointing to not have got the Ashes back, but we haven't lost anything yet," he said.

"We've got to make sure that we square the series up and there's Test Championship points to play for as well which down the line could make a huge difference." Root was adamant that despite the disappointment of failing to win the series, England could still be proud of their achievements over the summer.

"To win the first 50-over World Cup is a huge achievement for English cricket, so, absolutely, it should be seen as a successful year, but we've got a chance to level this series and make it slightly better than it looks right now so that's the full focus of the group."
"But ultimately we need to focus on the core group of players that are going to lead this team forward both home and away and build from that and towards winning in
Australia." - Batting form -
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"He's played extremely well. He's not really given many chances and we feel on a number of occasions in the first 20 balls we've beaten the bat a lot and it could have been very different but he's managed to ride that out well and when he's got in he's made it really count."