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Following England's comprehensive victory over India in the third Test, Joe Root is now his country's most successful Test match captain.
Root took the record from his fellow Yorkshireman, Michael Vaughan, with the win over Virat Kohli's India; Root's 27th victory as leader in 55 matches. While Joe Root has 20 defeats to his name, and Vaughan had only 11, it is still an achievement of which Root can be immensely proud.
In the immediate aftermath of the Test, Vaughan paid tribute to Root. He also highlighted that he feels Root needs to lead an England side to victory over Australia to be recognised as a truly great captain.
While England's rivalry with Australia has defined the record of many of England's Test captains, Root deserves to be given recognition for more than his record against Australia.
So far in his time as England captain, Joe Root has led his country in two Ashes series. The first was in Australia in 2017-18 when Root had been in the job for less than a year and was still hugely inexperienced in a leadership role.
Root led by example on the field, averaging an impressive 47.25 across the five-match series. Though he failed to convert five half centuries into a hundred, a problem that dogged the early years of his captaincy.
However, the shortcomings of an inexperienced batting line-up would prove to be their downfall, with only Alastair Cook and Dawid Malan also averaging above 40; with Cook's average significantly inflated by 244 not out in the drawn fourth Test.
Joe Root was also hampered by the absence of his best player and all-rounder Ben Stokes. He was forced to miss the tour following an off-the-pitch incident during a night out with team-mates, of which he was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing.
His second series as captain against Australia came in the summer of 2019 which would prove to be a momentous one for English cricket.
Joe Root was a key part of the England side which won the 2019 ODI World Cup in such dramatic fashion. Though he was unable to win the Ashes, his side secured a 2-2 draw in a truly compelling series between two evenly matched sides.
After the series draw England and Root said they would target building a side to win in Australia in 2021-22. In normal circumstances, that would be a very difficult task, but when you factor in the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic it has become an impossible job for Joe Root.
With the requirement for bio-secure bubbles, England have rightly prioritised the mental health of their players, giving them regular periods of rest as they try and juggle the demands of playing all three formats of the game.
This has made it virtually impossible for Joe Root to try and build a settled team capable of beating Australia in their own backyard.
Root has also had to contend with injuries to key players such as Joffra Archer, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood. Meanwhile, vice-captain Ben Stokes is taking an indefinite break from cricket to focus on his mental health, with no guarantees about when he may return to the international fold.
Alongside this general disruption to the side, Joe Root has also had to contend with one of England's weakest batting line-ups in recent years, with the likes of Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley, Dan Lawrence and Ollie Pope all flattering to decieve at Test match level.
England have been lucky enough that Root has also led by example with his own performances on the pitch, enjoying the best form of his career in 2021.
There have been instances where his captaincy has let him down. The defeat in the second Test against India was one of them, when Root got his tactics bowling to the tailenders badly wrong on the final day.
Ultimately though Joe Root could be the best captain and batsman in the world, but he is only as good as the players at his disposal. At no point during his reign as England captain has Root had the sort of players that Michael Vaughan, Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook had when they won the Ashes.
When you go back through his record, Joe Root has managed to achieve some great things. All this while juggling an ever-changing playing side, the restrictions posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and England's increased focus on success in limited overs formats.
Which is why Joe Root deserves to be judged on much more than just his record against Australia.
