Root laments costly miscalculations after Windies defeat
England captain Joe Root admitted West Indies were deserving winners after playing the Headingley conditions better than his side.
Joe Root admitted his and England's struggle to read the conditions at Headingley hampered them badly as they succumbed to West Indies at the captain's home ground.
Shai Hope's unbeaten 118 led the tourists to a rare away Test win, West Indies comfortably chasing down 322 with five wickets in hand after Root had declared on 490-8 late on the fourth day.
After scoring almost 250 together in the first innings, Hope and Kraigg Brathwaite (95) again made mincemeat of England's attack, scoring 144 runs for the third wicket.
Root cited a first-innings score of 258, having won the toss, as being pivotal to England's failure and conceded he may have been guilty of miscalculations throughout the contest in just his sixth Test in charge.
He told a news conference: "I think being brutally honest, the first two days we weren't as good as we can be. To win the toss, bat first and make what we did wasn't near what we're capable of.
"We didn't play the conditions very well. We didn't see the ball was moving around how it was and we could have played that slightly differently.
"Guys got in and got out and didn't support [first-innings centurion Ben] Stokes - he played tremendously well in that first innings, we just needed two or three partnerships to get to a decent score on what was a slightly bowler-friendly wicket.
"It did surprise me, having seen it sun out at the toss, it looked like a dead-cert bat first. It probably wasn't as clear as that once we got out there."
England also failed to capitalise on a promising start to the final day in which Kieran Powell and Kyle Hope fell in quick succession.
"It was tough," Root added. "At the start of the day we put them under pressure, we put the ball in good areas, got early breakthroughs but they built a very good partnership.
"We lost that lateral movement, it didn't swing and seam as much as we anticipated and the surface didn't misbehave as much as we might of thought or liked."
