Root 2.0 — a perfect symmetry between unorthodoxy and consistency

Joe Root's remarkable Test career resurgence, free from captaincy, sees him on track to surpass all-time greats in runs scored.

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.