After relinquishing the role of Test captain of England, Joe Root played his first Test match against New Zealand. He couldn’t have asked for a better start. Root played a brilliant innings at Lord’s and scored a century to guide his team to a five-wicket win against the Kiwis. On Sunday, Root achieved an astonishing feat and became only the second English batsman to score more than 10,000 Test runs. In doing so, he overtook another English batsman, Alastair Cook.
And who can talk better about Joe Root’s form than Cook himself. The former England captain believes Root’s consistency is “unbelievable”.
“It is a pleasure to watch him, the most complete England batsman I have seen. The man who played the most incredible innings was Kevin Pietersen, but for the most complete batsmen in all three forms, this is the root. His consistency is unbelievable,” Cook told BBC Sport.
Root made his Test debut in 2012 against India under Cook. Recalling Root’s early days, Cook said that at a very young age, Root could deal with spinners as well as anyone. Cook revealed that Root was ready to play international cricket and one can easily guess that he can handle the occasion.
At 31 years and 157 days, Root equaled Cook’s record as the youngest player to reach the 10,000-run mark. Speaking of records and figures, Kool went ahead and made a bold prediction. “Barring injury, he would go miles ahead of my record. It is very difficult to tie it. I had to grind my way up to 30, which I always felt took two hours. Because Joe has very low-risk scoring options, too many 360-degrees through, he often gets to 30 off 40 balls,” he said.
Root certainly has a long way to go but he is certainly ahead of the current crop of Test players. With 10015 runs, he is at the top of India’s Test batsmen Virat Kohli on the next 8043.
Coming back to the Lord’s Test, chasing a target of 277 against the Kiwis in the first Test, the hosts found themselves in deep trouble after losing two of their openers with just 32 runs. It was Root’s commendable knock of 115 not out off 170 balls that helped the hosts escape the initial threat and secure a five-wicket win.
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