Eng vs NZ: Both teams to take 'moment of unity' ahead of first Test, confirms Root
Jun 01, 2021
London [UK], June 1 : England Test skipper Joe Root on Tuesday confirmed that his team along with New Zealand will take a "moment of unity" ahead of the first Test, set to be played at the Lord's Cricket Ground, from Wednesday.
The "moment of unity" ahead of the first Test against New Zealand is likely to be similar to the one that preceded the first round of County Championship games in April, reported ESPNcricinfo.
During the moment of unity, all players, support staff and match officials stood in silence on the boundary edge for two minutes. Last year, after the murder of George Floyd, both England and West Indies squads took a knee to show solidarity towards the 'Black Lives Matter' movement.
"We will be taking a moment of unity at the start of the game. New Zealand will also be doing that. They are happy to work alongside us and support us in that. We know at the start of last summer there were some hard truths throughout sport and society. We have spent a lot of time talking about how we can better our game and how we can educate ourselves more. We have worked with the PCA and the ECB in trying to find ways of doing that and have done some workshops recently to try and make ourselves a bit more comfortable dealing with those issues," ESPNCricinfo quoted Root as saying.
"Throughout this summer, we will be looking at working with hopefully three projects where we can take the game to more diverse areas around the country where we can continue to look to grow the game and offer our help and support in doing that. We have spent a lot of time talking about this sort of thing, but this year is all about action. It's about actually doing something about it," he added.
Root said that over the last year, both sport and society faced some hard truths around the issues of inclusion and diversity.
"It has taken time. We wanted to make it really clear about how we are going to make a difference and keep bettering our sport. Hopefully this year we can really start to make a difference and keep that conversation current. We can make our game more diverse and make sure it is the game for everyone. We must do as much as we can in that regard to grow the game and make everyone feel comfortable playing cricket," he said.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Tuesday confirmed that pacer Stuart Broad will be the side's vice-captain for the two-match Test series against New Zealand.
