Headingley had barely emptied on Friday before the celebration curdled into a grievance. England had just beaten Pakistan by an innings and 103 runs inside three days, a seventh consecutive Test win in Leeds, and the obvious question was waiting for Joe Root: why will his side not be back here for the Ashes? The Yorkshireman called it a “shame”. Ben Stokes, who retired from international cricket in June, was considerably less measured on Instagram — and with that, the Headingley Ashes snub had two of England’s most decorated captains lined up against it.
As BBC Sport’s Stephan Shemilt reported from the ground, England will not play another men’s Test at Headingley until 2029, leaving Leeds off the roster for next summer’s home Ashes. That matters because Headingley has become England’s most dependable address: their current run of seven straight wins there, begun in 2018, is their longest at any ground in the world. The allocation was settled back in 2023, but confirmation of next year’s schedule has dragged it into the open again.
What Stokes And Root Actually Said
Stokes, who resigned the Test captaincy before stepping away from international cricket altogether, put it bluntly on his Instagram story. “Shame is an understatement,” he wrote, as reported by BBC Sport. “Shambolic would be more appropriate.”
Root, whose innings victory over Pakistan could hardly have been a better start to a second stint as captain, chose his words more carefully. He said it would “be nice to have a choice” over the grounds where England play, then declined the invitation to go much further.
“Obviously this is a slightly different system here and a different way that things are done,” Root said. “I think I should probably stay in my lane and understand that it’s someone else’s job to sort out. As a player, you want to play at the grounds you have most success at as a team, clearly. It’s one that we generally do well at and I love playing here — as the Yorkshireman I have to say that from birth, so I’m glad it’s the case.”
Why The Headingley Ashes Snub Matters For 2027
The row is really about home advantage, and Root was asked whether Australia would ever surrender theirs. They would not. Australia have not lost an Ashes Test at the Gabba since 1986, BBC Sport notes, and have not been beaten by England in Perth since 1978; both grounds are immovable fixtures of an Australian home summer. English Tests are allocated differently, as Root delicately acknowledged, and Headingley and Old Trafford were confirmed as the 2027 casualties three years ago.
The Leeds numbers are not trivial, either. England’s next-best current sequence at any venue is six wins, at Chester-le-Street. Taking Headingley out of an Ashes summer removes a surface and a crowd that have produced some of the most storied English victories of the modern era — at precisely the moment a rebuilt bowling attack, shorn of Stokes, Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Chris Woakes, could use every advantage going.
A New Regime Inherits An Old Argument
The timing is awkward for a set-up still mid-transition. Marcus Trescothick is interim head coach for this Pakistan series, with the New Zealander Stephen Fleming due to take charge of the Test side afterwards, while Brendon McCullum — sacked as Test coach in July — remains head coach of the white-ball teams. “I’d love to carry on, of course,” Trescothick told the Guardian’s Taha Hashim of his hopes of staying on under Fleming. Whoever is in the dugout in 2027 will be planning an Ashes without Leeds.
The win was the ideal opening to Root’s second tenure, and the irony will not be lost on Yorkshire: the more emphatic England’s Headingley record becomes, the stranger its absence from the biggest series of all looks. Stokes no longer has a vote in the dressing room — he was in county colours for Durham this weekend, the Guardian’s county cricket live blog reported, as they sealed a win. He still produced the line of the day.
