And he did it with a shrug.
It’s not often you get to watch history. To see the storyline from beginning to end. It’s been 12 years since Joe Root first played Test cricket in Australia. And it has been an altogether horrible experience.
Fifteen matches. Thirteen losses. Zero wins. In truth, that is the statistic that is most important to address. A century cements his individual legacy – the batter who could indeed do it everywhere – but winning in Australia is the true white whale of his and every other Englishman’s career.
Nevertheless, it was a talking point. An asterisk that was put to him and would have been held against him for years to come. Not by anyone with common sense, but by the pub bores who would stop him in the street and the Fox Sports commentators who would remind him of it every four years when he inevitably returns as a TV pundit. “Haha, you couldn’t do it here, Joe, could you?”
As his former teammate Sir Alastair Cook said: “Even Australia will have to admit he's a great now.”
Joe Root’s life is easier now. And England’s is better. This was vintage Root, but not stereotypical Root. The best in the world are the best because they are able to adapt. For years, his trademark has been a flowing backfoot punch/glide on his tiptoes. It is also believed to be the cause of his downfall Down Under. The ball bounces more here, and so chasing width carries more risk.
We didn’t see the backfoot punch today – not until he was in the eighties. Root played straight and within himself after arriving at the crease to a mess and the Ashes on the line. The score was five for two – and his own innings could have been over from just his third delivery when he was dropped by a diving Steve Smith in the slips. On such fine margins, series turn.
“It was doing plenty when he first came in,” said his teammate Zak Crawley, who made 76 in a partnership of 117 with Root. “And he was so calm, so clear about how he wanted to go about it. It has to be right up there. I forget some of his hundreds, that’s how many he’s got. It was a phenomenal knock.”
Root’s history in Australia runs deep. Statistics in cricket are often caveat-filled with the need to squint and distract to tell the story you want. But Root’s here is simple. He had never, at any level of the game, scored a century in the country. The Test record, naturally, is the one that dominates headlines but including all the Test, one-day, T20, warm-up fixtures and club cricket Root has played here, it remains the same. In all, he had batted 70 times Down Under in 58 matches and never made a hundred. When he first came to Australia as a young professional at Yorkshire to play club cricket for the Adelaide-based Prospect District CC, he ended up in the 2XI.
“He’s never mentioned it once,” Crawley said of the monkey on Root’s back. “But I’d be amazed if it wasn’t in his head, for sure. The fact that he can put that to one side and score a hundred shows what a class act he is and how tough he is. Everyone sees the talent but nobody sees the inner steel he’s got as well.”
Cook agreed: “He is England's best batsman ever,” he said on TNT Sports. “He just gets better and better. It is a brilliant innings and just what England needed. He's been superb under pressure as always.”
The nervous nineties didn’t have time to take hold for Root in Brisbane – neither for Matthew Hayden, who had publicly promised to run a lap of the MCG naked if Root failed to make three figures this summer. But Root did his best nonetheless. After going from 88 to 96 with consecutive boundaries, he was almost involved in a moment of high farce when Will Jacks sent him back from an attempted second run and the stadium gasped as a collective. Australia, sensing the occasion, turned first to Mitchell Starc as their own man of the hour and it worked. A wicket came, but it belonged to Jacks, not Root.
Their final roll of the dice was to hand the ball to Scott Boland and bring the wicketkeeper Alex Carey up to the stumps. An image from the club game, blessing the scene of a man about to make his 40th Test century. Boland’s first ball leapt and took the glove and pad of Root, and lobbed nauseously in the air before dropping short of a scrambling Carey.
Three balls later, however, Boland drifted onto Root’s pads and England’s finest was able to tickle it around the corner for four of his most historic runs. Root cheered and The Gabba roared. English fans in celebration, Australia’s in appreciation. Everyone here knew what they had just seen. After taking a moment to compose himself, Root looked to the changing room, opened his arms and shrugged. Was there really ever any doubt? Well, yes. And that’s what made it all the more special. He was England’s greatest before today, and he is England’s greatest after. It’s just that now, finally, no one can argue.
