Joe Root to shift to No.3 against West Indies

Root has retained the England Test captaincy despite the miserable Ashes tour, and he will lead his country into a three-match series against West Indies from March 8

Joe Root has been told he will bat at No.3 in the Caribbean.

Root has retained the England Test captaincy despite the miserable Ashes tour, and he will lead his country into a three-match series against West Indies from March 8.

But instead of occupying his preferred No.4 spot, The Cricketer understands the new England management will insist he slots in at the fall of the first wicket.

England are taking two inexperienced openers on the trip - the uncapped Alex Lees of Durham and Kent's Zak Crawley - while the squad is also relatively light on middle-order options.

^{Joe Root is set to bat at No.3 for England in the Caribbean (William West/AFP via Getty Images)}

Haseeb Hameed, Rory Burns and Dawid Malan have all been dropped from the group who were beaten 4-0 by Australia over the winter. 

Root has become quite used to arriving at the wicket much earlier than he would ordinarily like over the course of the past 12 months, as his team have routinely struggled with the bat, so the shift up one position will not be wildly unusual.

Ben Stokes could also be elevated as a result, to No.4, with Jonny Bairstow, Ollie Pope and Dan Lawrence seemingly competing for the two remaining top-six places.

The squad picked by Strauss and interim head coach Paul Collingwood is stacked with bowling allrounders and outright bowlers - Chris Woakes, Craig Overton, Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Matt Fisher, Jack Leach, Matt Parkinson, and Saqib Mahmood. 

None of those players could be sensibly considered a Test No.7, meaning it is highly likely that Ben Foakes will play as well as Bairstow.