It is one of the standout images of what has already proved a memorable summer: Joe Root, at the centre of the England balcony on the fourth day of the first Test with New Zealand at Lord’s, offering a salute of military crispness in tribute to team-mate Ben Stokes, as the all-rounder celebrated a century of military brute strength.
Even the pious minority who grumbled when the gesture first surfaced in April – a cocksure send-off by West Indies’ Marlon Samuels after Stokes’s dismissal in Grenada – will have cracked a smile at Root’s re-enactment. As with his batting over the past 18 months, he appeared to have timed it perfectly.
Yet the joke was on Root that day. The agreement among those players and support staff during that enchanting evening session in St John’s Wood was to perform the salute in unison should the all-rounder reach three figures, before a last-minute switcheroo left the young Yorkshireman flying solo. One of the team’s arch-pranksters had, on this occasion, become the pranked.
It was a scene that embodied the reboot that has occurred for the England team as they head into this much-anticipated Ashes series. Whatever result – bar a harrowing one – emerges from the five Tests with Australia, this season will go down as one in which the senior men’s side reconnected with the public at large, with frowns turned upside down through cavalier cricket and a tangible sense that those participating are similarly enjoying the ride.
On the field, Root has been unquestionably central to the unburdened approach that was fostered under caretaker Paul Farbrace as the team awaited the arrival of the new head coach, Trevor Bayliss. While New Zealand and their buccaneering captain, Brendon McCullum, took a share of the credit for teasing attacking, joyful play, it must be couched with the reminder that, before the tourists had picked up a bat in all three formats, England had already been shown the way by the 24-year-old.
In the opening exchanges of that first Test victory at Lord’s, Root’s counterattacking 98 alongside 92 from Stokes turned an ominous 30 for four into a sizeable first-innings total. In the first one-dayer at Edgbaston, a 71-ball century from No3, after arriving at the crease to face the second ball of the day, led the way towards England’s first ascent beyond the 400-run barrier; and in the one-off Twenty20 at Old Trafford he top-scored with 68 from 46 balls.
This is a batsman who has risen from England’s 5-0 whitewash in Australia 18 months ago, having been dropped for the fifth Test. The home series the summer before had been eventful, with David Warner’s nightclub right hook and a maiden Ashes century at Lord’s the standout moments. But by the fourth Test in Melbourne in the winter, despite smiling in the face of Michael Clarke’s hostile pace attack, he had been reduced to mere survival mode.
“Joe called me from Sydney and told me the news,” says his father, Matt Root, who first gave him a cricket bat when he was one day old and has nurtured his enthusiasm for the sport thereafter. “He was gutted to miss that final Ashes Test but not too down on himself. He vowed then that if he came back, he would make it much harder to drop him again.”
Newly installed as Test vice-captain this summer – further confirmation, if needed, that the top job remains his destiny – Root has made good on that promise with his 2,928 international runs since exclusion only bettered by New Zealand’s Kane Williamson (3,440) and Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara (3,950). This has been his golden period at No5, albeit one that is set to intensify when hostilities resume in Cardiff on Wednesday. In nine Tests against Australia he averages 33, half that when playing against the rest of the world.
Root’s original entry into cricket is well documented. He and younger brother Billy, himself a batsman and in line to make his championship debut on Sunday when Nottinghamshire host Middlesex, were absorbed into club life by their father at Sheffield Collegiate. Aged seven and five, they were drawing elders from the pavilion to watch them in the nets. At 12, after years of enthusiasm as a substitute fielder, Joe was deemed ready to play for the fourth team, from where he has moved through the ranks of Yorkshire and England.
What is less well known are the lengths he went to sharpen his eye. “When Joe was 13 I caught him in the garage taking a saw to his bat – he wanted to take the edges off to practise solely with the middle,” says Root Snr. “I don’t know where he got the idea but I agreed to do it for him. I remember we were at Doncaster and he was using this inch-and-a-half-wide bat in nets before the game. People had their mouths open as he struck our bowlers cleanly.”
His sense of fun? “Oh, he has always had that. It comes from wanting to be involved in the game all the time. Plus, you have to remember this England team have known each other for a long time. Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes are all old age-group team-mates, plus there are the other Yorkshire lads in the squad. They all genuinely enjoy each other’s company and in any job you operate better if you’re having a good time.”
