Joe Root 2.0 — a perfect symmetry between unorthodoxy and consistency

Of all the ways that Joe Root could have sauntered to his 36th Test hundred, against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve in Wellington last week, you would think that a reverse ramp over the wicketkeeper off a tall fast bowler was fraught with the maximum risk. As the ball sailed over Tom Blundell behind the stumps and trickled into the boundary rope, Root took off his helmet, kissed the Three Lions badge embossed on it, raised his bat and had a hearty laugh with Ben Stokes at the other end.

The manner of getting to the century and the visuals thereafter were revealing of a batter who seems to be at complete ease and enjoying his game more than ever before. So much so that even an impending milestone doesn’t deter him from playing a shot that triggered widespread criticism when his execution went awry against Jasprit Bumrah in Rajkot earlier this year.

Perhaps why should it when scoring hundreds has become run-of-the-mill for Root in his current avatar? Since 2021, he has as many as 19 of them; for context, it is just four less than what Kevin Pietersen — an England stalwart — managed in his entire career. In the nine preceding years of Root’s Test career, he had 17.

For further evidence that Root’s career graph has had a significant upturn of the kind that’s rare for a batter in his early to mid-30s, consider some more numbers. In 54 Tests from 2021 onwards (before the ongoing third Test against New Zealand), he has compiled 5063 runs at 56.25. In 97 Tests before that, his 7823 runs came at an average of 47.99.

Root has become even more dominant, in fact, since May 2022. With Stokes having taken over as skipper and Brendon McCullum as coach at that juncture, it isn’t hard to infer that freeing Root from the responsibility of captaincy has played a major role in this rejuvenation. Although he did rack up a few daddy hundreds as captain from 2017 to 2022, the challenges of leadership particularly when results were not favourable (England had won one out of 17 Tests before Stokes took charge) seemed to wear Root down and not allow him to optimise his ability as a batter by the end.

As skipper, his overall returns were 5295 runs in 64 Tests at an average of 46.44, which is good but still below his career average of 50.93. From the summer of 2022, when ‘Bazball’ entered the cricketing lexicon, he has 2997 runs in 34 matches at 57.63 including 11 hundreds.

Yes, Root was always a precocious talent destined for greatness from the moment he walked out to bat with a boyish grin against India in Nagpur in December 2012. Soon after his debut, he became part of the ‘Fab Four’ alongside Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson, an acknowledgement of the excellence they were simultaneously exhibiting.

In the last couple of years, however, what the 33-year-old has done is find another gear that threatens to leave his famed contemporaries behind. With Kohli and Smith (whose hundred against India in the third Test came after 24 innings) being increasingly prone to patchy form and Williamson having his issues with injuries, the divergence in their returns has been further amplified.

What the other three are encountering is perhaps only to be expected with advancing age slowing down reflexes and prolonging the recovery time after an injury. That Root, who will turn 34 on December 30, hasn’t faced such hindrances yet may be a sign that he is on course to scaling higher peaks.

Breaking records

As far as English batters are concerned, Root is already top of the pile. When he amassed 262 against Pakistan in Multan in October, he moved past Alastair Cook to become England’s leading run-scorer in Test history. Root is currently fifth in the list of highest run-getters ever, but with just 492 runs separating the Yorkshireman from Ricky Ponting at second, there isn’t any doubt that he will take the Australian’s spot in the near future.

It has understandably led to the big question: can Root, who has 12,886 runs after 151 Tests, go past Sachin Tendulkar’s colossal mark of 15,921 runs in 200 Tests?
For the query to even be raised is a credit to Root’s quality as well as a reflection of the volume of Tests that England plays. Cook seems to be backing his former teammate.

“I can see him overhauling Sachin Tendulkar’s record,” the former England opener told the BBC in October. “When I retired, I thought there was every chance that my record would be broken. I thought only the effects of captaincy and the hunger that takes out of you would stop him. I think the fact that Stokes has taken over the captaincy has helped Root.

“You could say Sachin is still the favourite, but (only) just. He’s been so lucky with injuries. All great players who played for a long time have been lucky with injuries. You just never know what’s around the corner, but it has to be something like it that could stop him. But I don’t see that happening for Root to lose that hunger and ability to keep driving himself forward for the next couple of years.”
Considering Root’s understated reaction to surpassing Cook’s tally, it is safe to say he is far from satisfied. “I’m obviously proud, but still feel as though there’s plenty more left to do and many more runs to get. I’m sure I’ll look back on it at some point when I’m finished and be very proud of it,” he had told the media.

If Root is managing to be so productive at a time when the returns of particularly Kohli and Smith seem to be dwindling, though they are a year or two older, it is perhaps because the Englishman has fewer chinks or quirks in his batting technique. As opposed to Smith’s exaggerated back-and-across shuffle and Kohli’s perpetual problems outside the off-stump, Root has a more textbook foundation that’s continuing to hold him in good stead.

Like Smith, Root did tend to be a candidate for leg-before dismissals against pace when he would go across a bit too far and fall over. But Kevin Sharp, one of his formative coaches at Yorkshire, had noted in a chat in 2021 that Root had fixed that issue.

“His back foot was transferring a bit further than he wanted and his front foot came across as well. That could have affected his balance. He is now definitely more balanced at the crease,” Sharp had observed then. “This has been something that has always been very important to him. Through the years, he has tried different movements. He needs a pre-delivery movement because that works for him.”

Modest returns Down Under

For all of Root’s accolades, though, the one glaring anomaly in his illustrious career is his record in Australia. In 14 Tests and 27 innings Down Under, he has only accrued 892 runs at an average of 35.68. More alarmingly, he doesn’t have a single three-figure score in the country, with his nine half-centuries underlining a previously existing failure to convert his starts into hundreds.

Team success has also eluded Root in these contests. Since his first tour of Australia for the 2013/14 Ashes, England hasn’t won a single Test there.

This is what former Australia batter and coach Darren Lehmann was alluding to when he recently stopped short of calling Root an all-time great. “That’s the only thing stopping Joe Root,” Lehmann said on ABC Radio during the first Test between Australia and India in Perth. “He’s a great player, but is he an all-time great? I don’t have him in that realm.”

With runs in Australia long considered to be the benchmark for opposition batters to gauge their standing, Root’s numbers on those hard and bouncy pitches do stick out like a sore thumb. Particularly on the 2021/22 tour, when Root had begun to get back to his very best after three ordinary years, he had an opportunity to make amends. But across five Tests, his 322 runs without a single ton meant he wasn’t able to redeem himself.

With the next Ashes series in Australia just 12 months away, Root will be certainly chomping at the bit to prove a point. Before that, he would also be challenged by an Indian attack spearheaded by Jasprit Bumrah over five Tests in England’s home summer. If he can sustain his incredibly high standards during the course of these marquee battles, he will get ever closer to the Indian legend stationed at Mount Everest.