From a prodigy to Yorkshire’s opener to a modern great: Joe Root’s remarkable story in milestones
From the day Joe Root picked up the bat, comparisons with fellow Yorkshire lad Michael Vaughan were bestowed upon him. Years later, he fulfilled his boyhood dream of becoming England's most successful Test captain by going past his boyhood hero Vaughan. As a cricketer, he has surpassed expectations to metamorphose into a batting great.
Firmly established as one among the modern batting’s "fab four" alongside Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith, Joe Root was the last to debut among them but has played the most number of Tests in the group.
With his prime focus on red-ball cricket, Joe Root is rapidly accelerating towards the tag of England’s greatest batsman.
Trivia: With 9,221 runs from 108 Tests at an average of 50.38, Joe Root doesn’t average below 38 in any country where he has played more than two Tests. The remarkable numbers illustrate the England captain’s consistency and adaptability across conditions.
In 2021, Joe Root has 1,368 runs at an average touching 70. No other batter has even scored 800 runs. His last name has been a subject of several headline cliché, but he has been the root, stem, branch and everything of England’s batting in recent times. England’s next highest Test run-getters have been Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Dan Lawrence and Jonny Bairstow. All four of them have aggregated 1,448 runs together. This bit highlights the 30-year-old’s dominance.
Celebrating Joe Root’s remarkable journey as an English cricketer, let’s jog through some significant milestones.
November 2009: Yorkshire sign Joe Root
Rising through age-group cricket, Joe Root eventually did the inevitable in late 2009 when he signed for the White Roses. Two months before signing a three-year contract, Joe Root, then 18, had debuted for the club in a Pro40 game.
By then, he was already a big name in the Under-19 circuits, having earlier dominated school cricket. He first represented Yorkshire Schools at 11 and amassed over 2,000 runs at over 50 before being awarded a prestigious scholarship at Headingley. He traveled across the world as a teenager, mastering all conditions and kept piling runs.
January 2010: Not an eventful Under-19 World Cup for Joe Root
While teammates James Vince and Ben Stokes had a good tournament, England’s opener Joe Root only scored 138 runs at 27.6 in the Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand.
May 2010: Opener Joe Root makes first-class debut
Joe Root opened the batting on his first-class debut. Playing Loughborough MCCU in a University Match at Yorkshire’s home turf, Headingley, the then 18-year-old, scored 18 and 20* as the match ended in a draw. He didn’t play a big role in his first season, not featuring in any County Championship games.
May 2011: Joe Root slams his maiden half-century against defending champions Nottinghamshire
Batting at no.3, Joe Root slammed his maiden first-class fifty in the County Championship game against 2010 champions Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. He scored 95 and shared a century stand with Jonny Bairstow, who slammed a double hundred.
August 2011: Finally, his first-class hundred
If not for Joe Root’s 160, Yorkshire stood a chance of losing against Sussex. Scarborough witnessed the future great’s maiden first-class ton. Over the next 10 years, he scored 33 more, with 23 of them coming in Test cricket.
December 2012: The inevitable moment arrives as Joe Root walks into Test cricket
A few days short of his 22nd birthday, Joe Root became the 655th Test cricketer for England. A top-order batter, who made his early mark as an opener, was designated the position of no.6 in a star-studded batting line-up that boasted Sir Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell.
On a slow, dead track for strokeplay, Joe Root walked in at an unusual position and conditions at 119 for four at the stroke of Tea. Unfamiliar because he was an opener or batted in the top order in very different conditions where the ball moved in the air or off the pitch. Here, in his first Test match, he was countering three spinners on a sluggish surface. A well-timed front-foot drive off Pragyan Ojha, off the 10th ball he faced, assured the fraternity that we were not looking at an ordinary cricketer. He showed great maturity while playing with the tail.
In a draw that helped England with one of their rarest moments – a Test series win in India – Joe Root contributed with 73 and 20 not out.
Joe Root wasn’t a county stalwart like Marcus Trescothick or Mark Ramprakash. He was more from the Ian Bell category, identified much earlier as the "next big thing." In a different role, with no extraordinary record, the schoolboy-looking young man, thrown into a ring called ‘Test’ cricket, paid the dividends.
Trivia: Ravindra Jadeja also made his Test debut in the 2012-13 Nagpur Test. Also, since Joe Root's debut, no cricketer has more Test runs than the England captain.
May 2013: Joe Root's maiden Test ton comes at home
In his sixth Test and first at his home ground (Headingley, Leeds), Joe Root slammed his maiden Test ton. More importantly, the alluring 104 contributed to a massive English win. Local lads Root and Jonny Bairstow shared a 124-run stand for the fifth wicket, much to the crowd's delight.
June 2013: So close, yet so far. England end runners-up in Champions Trophy
England's search for their maiden ODI silverware didn't end in the Champions Trophy that was being played at their home. Joe Root was the team's second-highest run-getter, but England failed to win the final that they almost had in their clutches.
July 2013: 'Opener' Joe Root's maiden Ashes ton comes at Lord's
The Ashes followed next. Joe Root was asked to return to the familiar position of an opener. In his second Test as an opener, he lit up Lord's with a marvelous 180 as England went 2-0. He opened in all Tests and managed only two fifty-plus scores from 10 innings. England retained the Ashes with a 3-0 victory, but things changed within months.
Joe Root's time at the top was short-lived as he returned to the middle-order in the Ashes in Australia later that year.
January 2014: Joe Root gets dropped for the first time
From England's "next big thing" to getting dropped, Joe Root's career witnessed extreme highs and lows in a year's span. The youngster was made the scapegoat for England's horrendous outings in Australia, where he was shuffled in the line-up.
With Mitchell Johnson dismantling the English, players leaving in the middle of the tour and an unpleasant dressing room, a youngster like Joe Root was treated harshly by the England management. He got an 87 in Adelaide and a few other starts, but they chose to drop him for the final Test.
The decision didn't go well with the Yorkshire board, who slammed the national board for such treatment of its players and suggested they gave him a more extended role as an opener.
June 2014: The grand return of Joe Root with his maiden double ton
Durham and Derbyshire bowlers fell to Joe Root’s wrath as he eyed a Test return. He slammed 49, 182 and 236 to stage a return. In his return Test against Sri Lanka, Joe Root slammed his maiden double hundred, at Lord’s. He continued the happy run against India as England won 3-1.
Joe Root’s Bradman-esque 2014 English summer in Test cricket ended with 777 runs from seven Tests at an average of 97.12.
Trivia: During the same summer, in the first Test against India at Trent Bridge, Joe Root and James Anderson recorded a 198-run tenth-wicket stand, which remains a record in Test cricket.
April 2015: Joe Root’s maiden overseas ton
In his seventh Test away from home, Joe Root finally got his first overseas hundred. The moment came at St George’s and on a track not easy to bat. He ran out of partners at 182. On a surface where the other three English half-centurions struggled to score at a strike rate of 40, Joe Root got his runs at almost 80.
November 2016: Joe Root’s 50th Test
During the 2016-17 tour of India, England hoped to repeat the 2012-13 feat. India, then the no.1 Test side, were having a happy run at home, but England tested them hard at Rajkot and the hosts managed a draw. The next Test at Visakhapatnam was Joe Root’s 50th. He got 53 and 25, efforts not good enough to prevent an English win.
July 2017: Joe Root celebrates England captaincy in style
Joe Root was a natural heir to England’s Test captaincy. He was appointed captain in 2017 after Sir Alastair Cook stepped down. In his captaincy debut at Lord’s, Root slammed an aggressive 190, striking at over 81, against the visiting South Africans. England bagged a huge win courtesy of Moeen Ali’s all-round show. England won the series 3-1.
He followed that with a 2-1 home series win over the West Indies. However, England had two challenging tours to follow. They lost the Ashes 0-4 in Australia and then suffered another defeat in New Zealand. They then drew a home series against Pakistan. In the home summer of 2018, England were back to their winning ways after they beat India 3-1.
August 2017: Joe Root scripts record with 12 50+ scores in consecutive Tests
At his home ground in Headingley, Joe Root etched a record after scoring his 12th score over fifty in consecutive Tests. By doing so, he went past Sir Viv Richards, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag and Mominul Haque and equalized AB de Villiers for the joint-world record.
July 2019: Joe Root wins the World Cup for England
After heartbreaks in the 2013 Champions Trophy final, the 2016 T20 World Cup final and the semi-final of the 2017 Champions Trophy, England finally had their moment. Eoin Morgan’s men created history by becoming the first England side to lift the World Cup. After a tied match, followed by a tied super-over, the final against New Zealand was decided courtesy of the "boundary count."
Joe Root had a brilliant World Cup, where he was the team’s highest run-getter with 556 runs at 61.8, striking at almost 90 and also scored two centuries. He remains one of the finest batters in ODIs, with 6,109 runs at 51.33. He’s already the country’s second-highest run-getter after Eoin Morgan and leads the century charts with 16 tons.
Trivia: Joe Root's 13 catches in the tournament remain a record for most catches in an ODI tournament.
February 2021: Joe Root celebrates 100th Test with a win and a record
Three Indian tours witnessed three significant milestones for Joe Root. The 2012-13 tour marked his Test debut; he played his 50th Test in 2016-17; and in 2020-21, he played his 100th Test.
Coming fresh from consecutive big tons in Sri Lanka, Joe Root's elegance in Chennai won England a Test. His 218 is the highest score in a player's 100th Test.
Despite Joe Root's brilliance in the first Test, India returned strongly to win the series 3-1. The defeat ended England's hopes of making it to the final of the World Test Championship.
February 2021: Joe Root's maiden five-for
The India-England third Test in Ahmedabad was a strange affair. Having been bowled out for 112 on a surface that assisted spinners, England shot out India for 145, courtesy of Joe Root's extraordinary performance with the ball. He bagged figures of 5 for 8. This remains his only five-for in any form of the game
August 2021: Joe Root goes past Sir Alastair Cook
Joe Root's has kept the statisticians busy all August with this sublime batting form. During the Trent Bridge Test, he went past Sir Alastair Cook's record of 15,737 runs to emerge as England's highest run-getter in international cricket.
During the second Test at Lord's, the England captain went past Graham Gooch's 8,900-run mark to become England's second-highest run-getter in Tests after Alastair Cook.
During his hundred in the third Test at Leeds, Joe Root once again went past his former captain. The Yorkshireman recorded his 39th international hundred, going past ACook's mark of 38 - which stood as a record for England for a long time.
With 1,398 runs in 2021, Joe Root is 83 short of England's record for most runs in a calendar year that Michael Vaughan achieved in 2002.
The world record rests with Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf, who amassed 1,788 runs from 11 Tests in 2006, slamming nine hundreds. With another five Tests to play this year, Joe Root may end up hauling this number if he continues his current splendid run.
Joe Root's batting numbers in international cricket
