In its hour of need, English cricket has turned to Joe Root.
Not for the first time.
Usually it's to steady the ship after a top-order batting collapse.
This time, it's to see the team through a crisis brought on by its captain paying an ill-advised visit to a London nightclub.
With Ben Stokes dropped for the second test against New Zealand for breaching the team's midnight curfew, England asked the 35-year-old Root to fill in as skipper for what will be his 165th test match — 26 more than the rest of the side combined that will be playing at The Oval starting Wednesday.
Root — Mr. Dependable — naturally obliged.
“I never thought I’d be sat here talking to you guys as England captain again. Zero chance … 0.1%,” he said on Tuesday in his first news conference as ‘interim captain.’ “The only thinking that came to my mind is, ‘What is the best thing for this team? Is it going to have a big effect on me and my personal life?’ And which outweighed the other.
“The fact is, it felt like it was the right thing to take this on, so I tried to make it as simple as that. I think I am in a very different place to when I finished (as captain)."
That was in 2022. Weighed down by leading a team that was coming off winning just one of its previous 17 test matches — England's worst run since the 1980s — Root quit after a record 64 tests in charge and was replaced by Stokes.
His batting has gone from strength to strength since then and he is now England’s all-time leading run-scorer in test cricket, second in history behind India great Sachin Tendulkar. Root needs 48 more runs to reach 14,000 in tests and will look to improve on his showing in England's first-test win at Lord's, when he made only 1 and 8.
Root said he was taking his latest time as captain on a “game-by-game basis,” insisting: "Let’s not look beyond this week.”
But he believes Stokes — someone he regards as a “close friend” — still has the respect of everyone in England's locker room despite flouting a curfew brought in in the wake of the Ashes series Down Under where off-the-field issues led to many questioning the professionalism of the England team.
“He’s been a phenomenal leader for the last four years and the way he’s captained has been brilliant,” Root said of Stokes.
“We’ve achieved some wonderful things as a team and won a hell of a lot of test matches. He’s a talismanic player and a great friend to a number of the guys, so of course there’s a huge amount of respect there from everyone.”
The England and Wales Cricket Board said Stokes has been cleared to play for Durham against Northampton in the County Championship from Friday. Gus Atkinson, who was with Stokes on the night out and has also been dropped, also is available for Surrey’s match against Glamorgan.
“Ben is a competitor and he loves to play and he wants to play,” Durham coach Ryan Campbell told the BBC.
“He put his hand up and said he made a mistake. From what I’ve seen, he’s in good spirits, he’s back in training, working hard and the rest will take care of itself.”
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
England's Ben Stokes reacts as he leaves the field after their win in the Test match against New Zealand at Lord's cricket ground in London, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
England's Joe Root leaves the pitch after losing his wicket during the first day of their test match against New Zealand at Lord's cricket ground in London, Thursday, June 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
England's Joe Root leaves the pitch after losing his wicket during the second day of the test match between England and New Zealand at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The B-52 that crashed during a test flight at an Air Force base in California was airborne for just over three minutes before plunging to the ground at a rate nearly 10 times faster than a plane normally descends for landing, limited tracking data shows.
All eight people aboard were killed in Monday's fiery crash of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, which was taking part in a routine test mission as part of an overall program to keep the long-running aircraft flying for decades to come. It was not yet clear Tuesday what caused the plane to crash, and officials at Edwards Air Force Base said it could take up to six months to complete the investigation.
The B-52 was airborne for 3 minutes and 15 seconds, according to AirNav Systems, a flight tracking website.
Flight tracking that was available Tuesday shows the bomber turning to the northeast right after taking off and nearly completing a 180 degree turn before crashing on another runway, according to AirNav Systems. The data that comes from a system called “multilateration” doesn’t show precise altitude and speed information, but it does show the plane fell to earth at a rate of descent of 5,056 feet (1,541 meters) per minute.
The airfield remained closed Tuesday. Crews were making the crash site safe for search and recovery teams to enter, after fires flared up overnight, said Mike Paoli, a spokesperson for the 412 Test Wing at Edwards.
The aircraft was supporting a “radar modernization program,” Col. James Hayes, the deputy commander for the 412 Test Wing, said Monday. In 2025, Boeing sent a B-52 to Edwards with a modernized radar system that is key to keeping the bomber in the air through at least 2050, nearly a century after it first entered service.
A test team planned to conduct ground and flight test activities on the aircraft throughout 2026 to feed a production decision, the Air Force said in a 2025 news release. The modern Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system replaced the aircraft’s antiquated radar. It was unclear if that was the same aircraft involved in Monday’s crash.
AESA replaced 1960s radar technology and offers improved navigation and targeting capabilities, according to a 2023 news release from Raytheon, which designed the new system for the Air Force's entire B-52 fleet.
The B-52, a long-range bomber that entered service in 1955, is designed to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. It has been used in conflicts involving the U.S. military from Vietnam to Iran.
Along with a new radar, the fleet of 76 B-52s are scheduled to receive additional upgrades, including new engines, crew compartments, conventional and nuclear communication systems, avionics and weapons. The military said the goal is to make the B-52 a complement to the Air Force’s newest strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider.
Aerial footage showed virtually nothing left of the aircraft that went down at the base in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles (161 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Officials determined no one could have survived after reviewing footage of the crash, Hayes said at a news conference.
Those on the B-52 included government contractors, Boeing employees and uniformed military.
Edwards is home to the 412th Test Wing, which conducts regular developmental testing of all Air Force aircraft, weapons systems, software and components before purchase by the service as well as throughout their life span. Test missions take place at Edwards daily, Hayes said.
The base is where Air Force test pilot Chuck Yeager reached a speed of Mach 1.05 and broke the sound barrier in 1947.
Aviation safety experts have said their first thoughts about what might have caused the crash were about a malfunction in the flight controls or engines, but it is way too early to know. And investigators will consider a myriad of factors, including the age and maintenance of the plane.
J. Joseph, a retired Marine Corps colonel and airline pilot. said that even in a B-52 with eight engines, a malfunction can make the plane difficult to control if the pilot loses the outboard engines, and the forces pushing the plane get out of balance in a condition Joseph called asymmetric thrust. Although if there is time, the pilots can adjust the other throttles to rebalance the forces.
Heather Penney, a former F-16 combat pilot and aviation expert, said she knew one of the people who died aboard the B-52 personally -- reinforcing how tragic this crash is for the close-knit community of military aviators. She declined to name the person before officials do.
She said it is unlikely that pilot error caused this crash given the expert training and experience of the test pilots on this flight. The age of the B-52 also opens up the possibility of problems with the structure of the plane.
“The youngest B- 52 was delivered to the Air Force in 1962. That was before the Cuban missile crisis, before the first man walked on the moon, before we had personal computers,” said Penney, who is director of Studies and Research at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “These are old airplanes. They’re structurally robust, but they are old aircraft. So structural failure can’t be ruled out.”
All the modernization efforts and upgrades that have been made to the B-52s over the decades have extended the life of these planes. At some point, these bombers will have to be replaced, but for now they continue to play a crucial role for the Air Force.
“The B-52 fleet that we have today, is the backbone of America’s bomber force. It’s over 50% of our bomber force, and it can go further, have larger payload, and stay airborne longer without refueling than any of our other bombers,” Penney said. “There’s no other bomber in our force has the attributes of the B-52. It’s been a workhorse. It’s going to continue to be a workhorse.”
Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press journalist Konstantin Toropin contributed from Washington, D.C.
This image taken from video provided by KABC shows law enforcement responding to the scene of an aircraft crash, Monday, June 15, 2026, near Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. (KABC via AP)
