The shrug accompanying the celebration could not have been more ironic. “What were you worried about?” he asked a nation, and a sport. Well you, Joe, and this thing around your neck, weighing you down as you protested otherwise. Drawing you into conversations that brought out a gnarl in the still boyish grin you try to hide behind that facial hair. A box to tick that had you training for an entire day at Lilac Hill in the build-up to the series, intense enough to require breaks for lunch and tea so net bowlers could keep up with your relentless pursuit of perfection in an imperfect world.
Therein lies another familiar thread through Root’s career: often he has been the man with solutions in a sea of confusion. For so long, the adult in the room, and especially more so now in a team full of bright talents with dim moments. At times throughout his career – and in moments here – those around him do not seem attuned to the gravity with which he is operating. Like Michael Caine in the most popular interpretation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – he can often seem a serious man among carefree muppets.
There were familiar passages of Root getting through periods that felled others, beginning with his arrival. A throwback to bad old days – many of them during Root’s time as captain – when he would walk out to the middle far earlier than he’d have liked. This, to face the 16th delivery of the match at 5 for 2, was his third-earliest entry into an innings in Australia. The other two times – at the WACA (second ball) and in Adelaide (10th) – came in the ’13-14 series, when he was a No. 3, and both in the fourth innings.
That he survived Starc’s devastating early burst that felled Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope owed as much to luck as to an ingrained understanding that even the best players have to simply hold on. The edge and plays-and-misses broadcast the anxiety. Movements were awkward, the usually crisp shapes of body and bat notably frayed, as if he had two left feet and the two right ones for hands.
The knuckling down during the period when the artificial lights clicked into gear as the sun set was equally impressive, if ultimately unnerving alongside Harry Brook’s chaotic energy. Carey stood up to squeeze Root with narrow fields and a metronomic Michael Neser sitting in on a wicket-to-wicket line.
Brook’s comical drive at Starc – the first ball he had faced from the only bowler carrying any real threat – was followed by Root keeping schtum, scoring 5 off 18 deliveries from the left-hander in a 59-ball boundary-less sequence that was broken by yet another crisp drive down the ground off Boland. Now that, kids, is how you absorb pressure and then put it back on the bowlers.
Arguably Root’s most impressive response was to not respond at all to the mix-up that ran-out Stokes. The skipper called quickly without hesitation, but also not realising Josh Inglis had the legs and hands to sprint and swoop. Had Root trusted his captain, he’d have been the one seen off for 77 and England’s innings would have collapsed terminally.
It was in the midst of the 5 for 54 cascade that Root notched his sought-after landmark. And it was hard not to surmise from his venture into outlandish shot-making with Jofra Archer through to stumps – nailing his second reverse scoop off Boland (having botched the first off Starc) for his first six in Australia – that this was a man liberated. Amid the glee as Smith tried to kill the day off by taking the pink ball to the corner was a 61-run stand that lifted England merrily from a distinctly sub-par 264 for 9.
All the talk leading into the series was that it was not about Root, but no England success on this tour would be on the agenda without him. And so it has played out.
