Root's Final Frontier

Ben Jones analyses England's greatest batter finally making a century in Australia.

In many ways, it was classic Joe Root.

Early to the crease after a top order collapse? Check.

Briskly getting to 30, with little to no risk? Check.

Raising the bat, to a chorus of England fans, having looked a class apart? Only happened 40 times, you know.

Yet in many ways, this long-awaited first century on Australian soil was a departure. His scoring areas were far from classic Root. More so than in any of his Test centuries outside of England, he scored down the ground, putting the horizontal bat shots away, largely ignoring that typically heavy-scoring zone behind square on the offside. Your precise definition of ‘the V’ can vary according to where you are in the world, but by simple wagon wheel data Root has never hit so many straight boundaries off seamers as he did today. He didn’t score a single boundary through the covers - not quite Sachin Tendulkar at the SCG, but not far off.

Similarly, a fundamental element of Root’s knock was where he set-up to address the quicks. His average impact point, 1.87m from his stumps, is the furthest down the track he’s batted in Australia, barring a single innings on the 2021/22 tour. In more familiar conditions, Root typically likes to bat deeper, using the pace to exploit that area behind square, but he was searching for a new dynamic. Proactive not in a frenetic stroke-making way, but in a way which invites the bowlers to change their own approach.

It wasn’t only how far down the track Root was setting up, but also how much he was looking to get across his stumps. The cluster of boundaries around the top of off stump - a zone the bowler is pretty happy to be hitting, you’d say - were almost all hit on the legside, whipped with wristy flicks or punched straight back past the bowler.

A rare moment of peril came with an LBW appeal off the bowling of Scott Boland, but appropriately he was well outside the line. At times in his career Root has struggled with falling over and losing his balance to the ball coming back in but today he made it a virtue, providing him with scoring options to good balls without having to take those risks through cover. Against balls targeting his stumps, he struck at 123. Easy as.

There was tactical nuance as well as technical interest. After all the discussion around England’s batting method, Root provided the perfect argument for those who want a more circumspect, streetwise approach. In the 40th over, just as the lights were coming on, Harry Brook played a loose drive to Mitchell Starc, nicking off and exposing the middle order - his detractors, misguided in general, would say this was exactly the lack of game awareness which has held England back in recent years.

Root, implicitly, seemed to agree. In the next 10 overs, he scored just seven runs from 27 deliveries, his lowest strike rate in a 10 over split across the course of the day. It was the toughest period of bowling he faced, with more swing than any other 10 over split barring the opening 10. As the challenge grew, Root didn’t run towards the danger - he stood to one side, and waved as it ran past.

There are caveats. This is far from a full strength Australian attack, and despite the unique questions posed by pink ball cricket, this looks to be a more than decent surface for batting. Root has and will face tougher days of bowling in these conditions, and he’ll need to be just as good if not better if he’s going to ensure today’s century is not a lone effort.

But in all of this, these tweaks and adaptations that Root has made across the course of his 135 runs, is the evidence of the versatility at the heart of his batting. Should he (improbably) manage another 45 unbeaten runs tomorrow morning, his average in Australia would rise above 40. Discounting the UAE where he has only batted six times, it would be the eighth country where Root has averaged above 40, a feat that only Sachin can match.

Perhaps that’s an appropriate slide onto where Root’s attention can now fully turn, his next great challenge - hunting down that 15,921. When truly great players have removed various statistical monkeys from their back, defusing their detractors’ ammunition, it’s understandable that your own spark and hunger can go with it. No more worlds left to conquer, and all that.

And yet, maybe this can clarify Root’s mind. Now, nothing hangs over his record. Today was the end of a process of ticking off the great achievements of Test batting, and now only one remains. 13686 behind him. 2236 to go.

Ball tracking data used in this article is provided by VirtualEye.