Joe Root might have scripted history but his best may be yet to come

4th June, 2022. England have fashioned themselves a match-winning opportunity against New Zealand but their brittle batting means that Joe Root walks out hoping to clear another pile of debris. The hosts have lost two quick wickets (for 32 runs) in pursuit of 277, meaning that a lot rests on their former skipper.

The situation swiftly assumes more perilous proportions. Ollie Pope is cleaned up by Trent Boult in the 17th over and Jonny Bairstow, in trying to bat the way his current coach Brendon McCullum once did, sees his stumps pegged back. So, Root, like it has been in the past year, is left wondering if anything has changed at all.

In media boxes and across the back pages in the country, this is England’s prospectively glorious new era - an era where taking a backward step is as taboo as scoring runs was under the previous regime. But this has an eerily familiar ring to it – a ring where Root, irrespective of whether he is captain or not, is expected to save the day.

It's not because he is one of the greatest English batters to have ever graced the sport. Or because he is, probably, the best Test batter on the planet currently. Well, it is to an extent, but it is more due to those around him not quite being able to crack the Test code consistently enough.

For much of the past couple of years, Root has had to shoulder immense responsibility. In 2021, the former skipper amassed more than 1700 runs in the longest format. The next best was Rory Burns with 530 runs. The more damning bit, though, was that ‘extras’ was the third highest contributor to England’s run-tally throughout the year.

Anyway, no dwelling too much into the past. England’s Test batting stocks are in dire straits and nothing anyone can say will change that notion. However, it only magnifies the sort of task Root was performing day in, day out, and the sort of task he needed to do at Lord’s on Saturday and Sunday.

Joe Root produced a magnificent fourth-innings ton

Akin to how he tided over whatever failures occurred around him, the right-handed batter found a way against the Kiwis. It wasn’t laden with as many boundaries as you would’ve thought. But it had plenty of artistry, dexterity, and temperament – a skill-set that makes Root stand out from the rest of the batting pack.

On Day 3, there was a phase when England found themselves in all sorts of strife. Root couldn’t get into a good batting rhythm either. He was defending well but had found run-scoring tough. Till a couple of years ago, he might have felt the pinch and might have tried to manufacture a stroke that wasn’t there, losing his wicket in the process.

At Lord’s, he waited for Ben Stokes to pounce on his favourable match-up against Ajaz Patel. Once the England captain had departed, his predecessor took matters into his own hands, scoring at more than a run-a-ball in his partnership with Ben Foakes on Day 3.

In essence, that assault (if you can call it that despite the surgical precision Root showcased) rendered the second new-ball conversation moot. Throughout the Test, the new ball fetched bowlers high rewards. In the fourth innings however, England’s batting lynchpin ensured it would be immaterial.

The hosts won the game an over and a half before the second new ball was due, indicating how Root had masterminded the run-chase expertly. He also registered his first fourth-innings ton in Test cricket – a rather remarkable stat considering he now has 26 Test centuries and more than 10,000 runs.

This article, though, isn’t about the records Root hunted down at Lord’s and the milestones he already has to his name. To be honest, it would be a disservice to just offer those achievements a fleeting mention in any of these pieces. His accomplishments deserve a separate place in history and by the time he’s done saving England from impending doom, there’ll probably be a book (rather than a chapter) on how he kept performing even as those around him floundered.

The funny and astonishing bit, however, is that the former skipper, despite the honours that he has already attained, seems to have plenty left in the tank. On Sunday, he became the first cricketer born in the 1990s to breach the 10,000-run barrier. He also became the fastest batter (in terms of days taken since his debut) to go past the 10,000-run mark, doing so in nine and a half years of Test cricket.

The biggest catch-phrase among this record-hunting is that Root is no longer captain – a job that he said was wearing him down and had been creeping into spaces where cricket shouldn’t be the dominant theme. In his words, captaincy had become an “unhealthy relationship” and that it had become “unfair” on people close to him, his family and above all, himself.

No one will blame him either. In the past couple of years, he has not missed a Test due to a sore back, despite carrying the English batting unit on his shoulders. He has not complained even when England kept finding ways to lose games of cricket. England were hammered in the Ashes and apart from a slight speck of disappointment, he never let anyone know how shattered he was from the inside.

He still kept scoring runs and that perhaps blurred the vision that he was enjoying captaincy. There is no greater honour than being the skipper of your nation in the longest format. But after a point, which Root had probably reached post the Ashes, it was simply untenable to get the best out of all parties involved. That he still plundered as many runs as he did in the Caribbean is proof of his character and mental strength.

So much so that you begin believing that Root’s best is still ahead of him. He is only 31 and while most players encounter a slump at around this juncture, he only seems to be growing in stature. Since the start of 2020, he has scored 9 centuries and ensured that England have competed in a few of their matches. That they’ve only won 2 out of their 18 most recent Tests is not a blot on his match-winning ability, but of those around him.

Over the years, cricketers have changed when they’ve been handed over the reins. Some bask in it and extract every ounce of performance. Some don’t perform as well but manage to get the best out of their resources. Root wasn’t as good in the latter as he was in the former aspect. But that isn’t a crime. Considering the number of times he dug England out of trouble, it is a testament to his quality that he’s gotten to where he is at the moment.

Every time England lost a game, Root was chastened with scars – scars on when (or if) the Three Lions would ever return to their past glories. After a while, it would’ve left a few lasting bruises too. Now, with those fetters of captaincy being broken, he can return to only concentrating on scoring runs.

He did it wonderfully as skipper too. It’s just that it can get even better. The new era media coverage might’ve focussed on intent, on providing players freedom and backing them to the hilt. It seems the right noises have been made, although there is no guarantee that it’ll definitively work.

But even if it crumbles, Root will be there to save the day. He always has been.