He did it with a shrug.
You rarely get to see history. Watch the storyline from beginning to end. It’s been 12 years since Joe Root first played Test cricket in Australia. It was a very scary experience.
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Fifteen games. Thirteen losses. Zero wins. In fact, this is the stat that needs to be addressed the most. A century cemented his legacy – a batsman who really could have done it anywhere – but winning in Australia was the real white whale in his and every other Englishman’s career.
Still, it’s a topic. It’s an asterisk that’s been placed on him and will count against him for years to come. Not anyone with common sense, but the people in bars who would stop him on the street, and the Fox Sports commentators who would remind him of it every four years when he inevitably returns as a TV commentator. “Haha, you can’t do that here, Joe, can you?”
Joe Root’s performance in the second Ashes Test at the Gabba (Getty)
Joe Root’s life is much easier now. And England’s is better. This is old-school Root, but not stereotypical Root. The best people in the world are the best people because they adapt. His signature for years has been a fluid back-foot punch/tip-toe slide. This is also believed to be the reason for his downfall in Australia. The ball bounces more here, so chasing width carries a greater risk.
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We didn’t see a punch from the back foot today – until he was in his eighties. After reaching the crease, Root batted straight, with inner turmoil and ashes on the line. The score was five for two – and his own innings might have ended from his third delivery, when he was dropped by a diving Steve Smith. On such razor-thin margins, the series pivoted.
Root celebrates his first ton on Australian soil (Robbie Stephenson/PA Wire)
Root has a long history in Australia. Statistics in cricket are often full of caveats, requiring squinting and distraction to tell the story you want. But Root is very simple here. He has never scored a century in this country at any level of the game. The Test record is naturally the one that grabs the headlines, but including all Tests, one-days, T20s, warm-ups and club cricket that Root has played here, it remains the same. In total, he batted 70 times in Australia in 58 matches but never reached 100 wickets. When he first came to Australia as a young professional from Yorkshire to play club cricket for Prospect District CC in Adelaide, he eventually made it into the 2XI.
The tense Nineties left no time for Root to spend in Brisbane, nor for Matthew Hayden, who publicly promised to run a naked lap around the MCG if Root didn’t earn triple figures this summer. But Root still tried his best. After consecutive boundaries from 88 to 96, when Will Jacks sent him back in the second try, he almost descended into a farce that left the entire stadium breathless. Australia sensed the situation and first embraced Mitchell Starc as their man of the hour, and it worked. A wicket came, but it belonged to Jack, not Root.
Roots out at end of day one (Reuters)
Their last roll of the dice was giving the ball to Scott Boland and taking wicketkeeper Alex Carey to the stumps. A picture from a club match, wishing a man on the verge of reaching his 40th Test century. Bolan’s first ball jumped, caught Root’s gloves and pads and was tossed sickeningly in the air before falling to the scrambling Carey.
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Three balls later, however, Bolan floated to Root’s pads and England’s best player completed his most historic four-wicket haul at the corner. Root cheered and Gaba roared. The British fans were celebrating, the Australian fans were appreciative. Everyone here knows what they just saw. Root calmed down for a moment, looked towards the locker room, opened his arms and shrugged. Really any doubt? Well, yes. That’s what makes it even more special. He was England’s greatest player before today and he will be England’s greatest player after today. Only now, finally no one can argue.
