Hailing from a country that’s produced quality fast bowlers that seem like horses meant to win countless steeplechase events, whether you think of Broad, Anderson, Cork, Harmison or Wood, Joe and Root is, at best, an anomaly of sorts.
He is not a maverick shot maker. He doesn’t hit the longest sixes there can be hit. He’s not even a slogger; perhaps the prerequisite of a prototype modern-day white-ball cricketer.
What’s more? Joe Root is irrefutably a soft-spoken character in a sport that’s often about bulging muscles and even bigger egos.
In an age siding with loud characters, here’s one with a character. You ought to reckon, this gem from Yorkshire and very much one of England’s national treasures is an indispensable commodity in international cricket whose true value can’t be sufficiently measured.
Few in the game have been as respected by their opponents and even fewer appreciated by both- the “have-beens” and the pristine contemporaries than Root.
Joe Root, by this definition, stands heads and shoulders above his contemporaries and opposite numbers. To a world that’s often singularly interested in tabloid journalism, Joe Root’s feats come across as the discerning content on the edit page.
Whether you’re are a left leaning intellectual or a right winger concerned with ultra aggressive line of thought, Joe Root’s great poise at the wicket can encourage you to view the game from the centre of centre; as a balance between caution and aggression.
Is he the Bodhidharma with the bat?
Root makes a living by actually living his dream; which, ask irate bowlers, is about the love for the grind. This is how he changes the complexion of an inning despite, of course, not batting in familiar surfaces all the time. His double ton at the Chennai Test during 2021 came at one India’s most dominant venues, albeit a surface the tall batsman hitherto wasn’t all too familiar with.
That it was a double hundred in his hundredth Test was the icing on the cake and the dismantling of the hosts when perhaps they’d have least expected it.
For someone whose batting can, on days, seem an art form, and maybe never a means to dabble in carnage, Root’s achievements can draw the ire from statisticians and number crunchers.
Random big statement?
Lest it is forgotten, Joe Root is just 83 shy of 1,000 World Cup runs for England. Not too bad for a batsman who was once only thought of as a lad meant for Test cricket.
Yet, at the same time, the Joe Root story is a classic example of adapting to the needs of the team in an age where cricket is perhaps obsessing about individual feats than it ever was.
In an era that likes hype as much as one likes emojis and where simplicity is about as rare as the word it rhymes with, say rarity, Root is the unrelenting force with the bat.
In the 2019 ODI World Cup, he made 556 runs from 11 games; including an enviable average of 61 and emerged unbeaten on two occasions, emerged unbeaten. Lest it is forgotten, Root had opened his campaign with a vital knock of 51 against Pakistan, which was immediately followed up by a brilliant 107 versus Pakistan. Neither of the attacks featured part timers who were in any which way, docile; Root was blunting the likes of Rabada, Tahir, Afridi and the likes.
His tireless search for runs speaks about his love for batting; the man with 893 T20I runs and 11,400 Test is constantly among runs in the ODI format.
The former England captain is not only 95 runs away from 6,500 one day runs but is also about to own another envious record.
No other English batsman has, as on date, scored as many tons as Root has: 16.
If England need their best batsman to stand tall in a contest as coveted as the World Cup, then Joe Root is that man. He’s scored eight fifties in the fifty over World Cups, with eight to his name.
Having once again begun his latest World Cup campaign on a strong note with a lovely fifty against Bangladesh that culminated in 82, and before that, the 77 v New Zealand, Joe Root is quietly doing the job with cricket content creators continuing to remain quiet about the man who’s making the right kind of sound with the bat.
As always, the attention rests with a Smith, Williamson, Virat and Rohit, the latter having smashed a big hundred already.
However, Root, not a man who’d ever scream for attention, continues to chip away at bowlers like that woodpecker that chips into the tree.
Maybe it’s only fair to say that the man who needs 83 more for completing 1,000 World Cup runs is the Root cause of concern for any who’d be armed with the fool’s errand of undermining England.
They might not be the hosts, of course, in this edition, but are the team the hosts of the 2023 World Cup would dread to take lightly.
And while many would think that they’re in the game having removed a Bairstow, Stokes, Buttler and Malan, it won’t be over, until Joe stands on the 22 yards with a bat in hand.